Asbestos in the Videocolor plant, Inail condemned

The Court of Rome, in a decision that has become final, has upheld in full the appeal of a worker of the VideoColor plant in Anagni against the Inail. The Capitoline judges recognised the occupational nature of the asbestos-related pathology, the permanent biological damage and, above all, the qualified exposure to asbestos from 1990 to 2006, for about 16 years. The judges at first instance stated that the worker, a maintenance technician for more than 20 years, was continuously, massively and directly exposed to asbestos dust and fibres present in the ovens, insulation, gaskets, machinery, roller conveyors and numerous structural parts of the plant. The technical evidence," the Court emphasised, "the testimonies and the minutes of the health authorities ascertained a presence of asbestos that was not occasional, but structural and pervasive within the establishment. The medico-legal consultancy ascertained the direct causal link between exposure and pathology, recognising the pleural thickenings as a tabulated occupational disease and therefore assisted by legal presumption.

The INAIL was ordered to liquidate the biological damage, pay the capital compensation of 9,000 euros, and reimburse legal costs. The decision led to the release of the official certificate of exposure to asbestos, an act that allows the worker to obtain eight years of increased contributions and therefore immediate access to early retirement. Satisfied with the verdict is lawyer Ezio Bonanni, president of the National Asbestos Observatory. "This ruling definitively sanctions what we have been denouncing for years: the Videocolor plant was a place of massive exposure to asbestos and is an institutional acknowledgement of a truth that thousands of workers have experienced on their skin for years. It is the recognition,' says Bonanni, 'that health cannot be bartered with work, nor sacrificed on the altar of production. Today a simple but often denied principle is affirmed: those who have fallen ill while working have the right not only to compensation, but to a dignified life perspective'.

Just last 3 December, the Cassiotto intervened, with the Ruling 31559, to circumscribe the effects of the recognition of contributions for exposure to asbestos. The Supreme Court specified that the recognition of the right to revaluation, for pension purposes, of the contributions relating to the period of exposure to asbestos does not allow the reconciliation of the pension on the basis of a contribution exceeding the legal limit of maximum useful contributions. "The judgment states that 'any increase in contributions does not entail the application of neutralisation mechanisms, given that it can operate, in keeping with the main function of the benefit, only as an increase and not as a total or partial replacement of the contributions already credited, i.e. within the limits necessary to make up the contribution shortfall until the maximum seniority attainable is reached, without it being possible, once this has been obtained, to add the further increase deriving from exposure to asbestos or to recalculate with the exclusion of the less favourable contributions'.