Army may used to for workplace inspections in future

In the future the army may be deployed to inspect worksites to ensure they respect safety codes and labor laws, Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said on Tuesday.
''At present there is no concrete plan to do so, but if necessary we could consider using army personnel, for example from the engineer corps,'' he added.
La Russa earlier this week said more paramilitary Carabinieri police, who are under the ministry of defense, would be engaged in workplace safety inspections in the wake of accidents which have made Italy number one in Europe for the number of worksite fatalities.
''There is already a special Carabinieri squad which performs this function and it would just be a matter of pulling forces from other units to help them out,'' the minister said in an interview posted on the Affaritaliani.it website.
''Very few people know that the Carabinieri inspection squad exists but it is a highly specialised unit which carries out inspections in 102 provinces. It is made up of over 450 Carabinieri and the number will soon expand to over 500,'' La Russa said.
''Their current assignment is to check for violation of labor laws and those regarding workplace zoning and safety. This is a serious commitment to reduce the number of workplace fatalities,'' he added.
''As far as also employing the army, I repeat, there is no proposal at present. However I intend to discuss this possibility with (President Giorgio) Napolitano, the welfare minister (Maurizio Sacconi) and, of course, (Premier Silvio) Berlusconi'', La Russa said.
Sacconi recently said that Italy's lack of safety inspectors is ''one of the fundamental problems'' behind workplace accidents.
According to ANMIL, an association representing injured workers, if every Italian business were to be checked by the number of inspectors currently available, each would receive a visit once every 23 years.
In Tuesday interview La Russa also responded to criticism of the government's decision to use the military to back up local security forces in key Italian cities, which he said was based on ''ideological prejudices''.
On Monday the Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana, published by the Paulist fathers, accused the government of ''uselessly playing soldiers to combat false security problems. Not even in Angola do they do this'',
''The fact of the matter is that the country's problems have always been out there but they lost the front page attention to political rhetoric,'' the weekly added.
La Russa said such criticism was ''a throwback to a pseudo-ideological attitude on the Left and in certain Catholic-Communist circles who maintain their ancient, post-68 mentality''.
Earlier this month the socio-economic think-tank Censis reported that the number of workplace deaths in Italy now far surpassed those for violent crime and were the highest in Europe.