“Good solution, as long as it doesn’t isolate workers” – Corriere.it

VATICAN CITY Safety at work, discrimination against women. And, for the first time, a reflection on smart working. Pope Francis receives in audience the president Franco Bettoni, managers and staff of Inail, the national institute for insurance against accidents at work, and considers: «Technology has favored the development of “remote” work, which in some cases it can be a good solution, as long as it does not isolate the workers preventing them from feeling part of a community. Why “the clear separation between places of family life and working environments has had negative consequences not only on the family, but also on the culture of work», says Francesco: «He validated the idea according to which the family is the place of consumption and the company that of production, and this is too simplistic. He made people think that care is an exclusive family affair and has nothing to do with work. He risked fostering the mentality according to which people are worth what they produce, so that outside the productive world they lose value, identified exclusively with money. A habitual thought, a thought I would say not entirely conscious, but subliminal».

The Pope’s reflection focuses on “culture of waste” which he has often denounced, starting with the encyclical Brothers all. “Thank you for the extra care you have put in place in the period of maximum health crisis, especially towards the most fragile categories of the population,” he said to the Inail representatives. And in particular he dwells on the “growth of cases of female accidents” observed in recent months: “The full protection of women in the workplace has not yet been achieved. And on this also, allow me to say, there is a prior discarding of women, for fear that they will become pregnant: a woman is less “safe” because she can become pregnant. This is what you think about when you hire her: when she starts to “get fat” if you can send her away it’s better. This is the mentality and we have to fight against it». Thus “the activity of your Institute is doubly precious, both in terms of training to prevent accidents at work, and in terms of accompaniment of the injured and concrete support for their families”, adds Francis: “The service to which you dedicate yourselves allows not to make anyone feel left on their own. This is decisive. Without safeguards, society becomes more and more a slave to the throwaway culture. He ends up giving in to the utilitarian gaze towards the person, rather than recognizing his dignity. The tremendous logic that spreads waste can be summed up in the phrase: “You are worth if you produce”. In this way, only those who manage to stay in the cog of the activity count and the victims are set aside, considered a burden and entrusted to the good hearts of the families”.

After all, “the gap manifests itself in many ways, such as in the obsession with reducing labor costs, without realizing the serious consequences that this causes, because the unemployment that is produced has the direct effect of widening the boundaries of poverty” . And “among the consequences of not investing in safety in the workplace there is also the increase in accidents”, adds the pontiff: “Faced with this mentality we need to remember that life is priceless. A person’s health cannot be exchanged for a little extra money or for someone’s individual interest. One aspect of throwaway culture is the tendency to blame the victims. This is always seen, it is a way of justifying, and it is a sign of the human poverty into which we risk causing relationships to fall if we lose the right hierarchy of values, which has the dignity of the human person at the top”. Among other things, the Pope exhorted to “take responsibility with the family for the dramatic situation of those who are forced to abandon work due to an accident, take care of them in an integral way: it is not almsgiving, it is an act of justice ».