Points-based driving licence on building sites to start on 1 October, Calderone-social partners meeting today

Government and social partners are meeting again to tackle the issue of the points driving licence for construction companies, the measure planned by Labour Minister Marina Calderone to combat the tragic phenomenon of work-related deaths on construction sites. The appointment is for this afternoon at the ministry in Via Flavia, Rome, where she is expected to illustrate the implementing decree with the details of the measure, including the rules on the deduction of points and the requirements to access the mechanism.

The government's objective remains to get the measure off the ground by 1 October, as the minister has reiterated on several occasions, according to which the licence 'is not a tool for scoring human life', but 'a measure of the safety that companies are able to guarantee, based on a series of parameters that include their history and the progression of their activity over time'.

For the Ance, whose representatives will participate at the table, it is 'essential' that the credit licence should apply to all figures on the construction site who work on the work, regardless of the sector they belong to. According to the National Association of Building Contractors, this measure can be considered 'a first step, but in order to deal more effectively with the scourge of accidents, it is necessary to focus on the qualification of companies and the prevention and training of workers'.

Instead, there was a clear rejection of the trade unions, or at least part of them. "The feeling is that on the subject of safety at work there is a lack of knowledge or a clear political will not to intervene,' said Pierpaolo Bombardieri, secretary general of the Uil trade union, in an interview with La Stampa. He called for a round table to be set up at Palazzo Chigi, 'because security is an issue that cannot be dealt with by the Minister of Labour alone'. Criticisms, his, which are added to those of the Cgil, in particular on the reward mechanism envisaged by the driver's licence: they range from 30 points that the company can obtain with a self-certification respecting certain legal obligations to a maximum of 100 points. "We do not need interventions to make a good impression" whose effects "we could only evaluate in a few years, at the end of long judicial proceedings," said after the convening of the ministry Francesca Re David, confederal secretary of the CGIL, urging "an extraordinary prevention plan". The Cisl also insists on a prevention plan, which, however, 'promotes' the points-based driving licence, having included it in the platform presented to the government: the secretary general Luigi Sbarra stressed in a recent interview with Avvenire that it is a 'useful and deterrent tool', to be 'implemented and extended to other sectors', even if 'alone it cannot suffice'.