(continues, part 2)
After two days, the confinement was extended to all of Italy equally. And nothing changed in the area of the Bergamasca, where the contagions grew and grew at the same unstoppable rate of their factories running at full speed. "When everyone in the area, especially in Nembro and Alzano Lombardo, took it for granted that the red zone was going to be declared, some important companies in the area lobbied to delay it as much as possible," says Andrea Agazzi, general secretary of the FIOM Bergamo trade union, in the RAI's Report. And he adds: "Confindustria played its cards and the government chose which side it was going to be on".
Infections and deaths increased unstoppably, especially in the industrial areas of Lombardy between Bergamo and Brescia. Exactly one month after the first official case of coronavirus in Italy, on Saturday 21 March, the sad record of almost 800 deaths a day was reached. The governors of Lombardy and Piedmont - another great industrial centre - declared that the situation was unsustainable and that it was necessary to stop production activity. Conte, who until then had been against the measure, appeared at night overwhelmed to say that yes, now yes, "all non-essential productive economic activities" would be closed.
Confindustria was immediately activated and began a pressure offensive against the government. "Not all non-essential activities can be shut down," they said in a letter to the premier detailing their demands. The industrialists managed to get the decree approved within 24 hours and Conte accepted its conditions. In effect, the Government had chosen whose side to be on, and not that of the workers.
The trade unions, en bloc, took to the warpath and threatened a general strike if the real closure of non-essential productive activities was not carried out. Confindustria had succeeded in adding many non-essential activities, such as those in the arms and munitions industry, to the list of activities that could continue to operate. In addition, they included a kind of clause that allowed, in practice, any company that declared that it was "functional" for an essential economic activity to remain open. This meant that in just one day, in Brescia, the other Lombardy province hit by the coronavirus, more than 600 companies that were not on the list of the essential ones began the procedures to continue operating.
"I do not understand why the unions would want to strike. The decree is already very restrictive: what more should be done," said Confindustria president Vincenzo Boccia, not very empathetic. He added: "We will already lose 100 billion euros a month; not stopping the economy is in the interest of the whole country. Annamaria Furlan, general secretary of the CISL union, tried to explain: "I have been a trade unionist for 40 years and I have never asked for the closure of any factory, but now people's lives are at risk.
The factory workers started protests and strikes while the unions negotiated with the government, which finally came to its senses. Some activities were removed from the list of the more than eighty considered essential, such as the arms industry or call-centers that sell unsolicited offers over the phone, and petrochemical industries were restricted. It was also agreed that the self-certification of a company was not sufficient to be considered functional for an essential one, and the commitment to protect the right to health of the workers who remain in the factories. However, ambiguous points were left in the decree and there is a grey area that allows many factories to remain open. Similarly, many workers continue to work without the proper safety distance or adequate equipment.
The Bergamasca factories remained practically all open until March 23, when the official count in the area was almost 6,500. A week later, on March 30, despite the decree closing "all non-essential production activities," there were 1,800 factories open and 8,670 officially infected in the area.
Let's name the factories that didn't want to close. One of the companies in the area is Tenaris, a world leader in the manufacture of pipes and services for oil and gas exploration and production, with a turnover of $7.3 billion and legal headquarters in Luxembourg. It employs 1,700 workers in its Bergamasca factory and belongs to the Rocca family, with Gianfelice Rocca, the eighth richest man in Italy, as its owner. In the province of Bergamo, as in the whole of Lombardy, private health care is very strong. In Bergamasca, in particular, half of the health services are private. The two most important private clinics in the area, which have an annual turnover of more than 15 million euros each, belong to the San Donato group -whose president is none other than the former Italian deputy prime minister Angelino Alfano, former Berlusconi's dauphin- and the Humanitas group. The president of Humanitas is Gianfelice Rocca, also owner of Tenaris, the industry that has not wanted to send its workers home. Bergamo's private healthcare system was not activated by the Coronavirus emergency until March 8, when, by decree, all non-urgent services had to be postponed. Only then did they start making room for Covid-19 patients.
Brembo is another big company with factories in the Bergamasca. It belongs to the powerful Bombassei family, also involved in politics: Alberto, the son of the founder, was a member of parliament for Scelta Civica, the party of Mario Monti. He has 3,000 workers in his factories in the Bergamo area, where they produce brakes for cars. It has a turnover of 2.6 billion euros. They didn't want to close.
Val Seriana was largely industrialised by Swiss companies over 100 years ago, so the presence of factories linked to Switzerland is still important. Another big company that has more than 6,000 workers in Italy, more than 850 in the Bergamasca, is ABB, with Swiss and Swedish capital. Leader in robotics, it has a turnover of 2 billion euros. On March 30th it was still open as usual.
Persico, an Italian company that produces automotive components, with 400 workers and 159 million in sales, is based in Nembro, the municipality with the highest number of deaths from Covid-19 per inhabitant in Italy. Pierino Persico, the owner, was one of those who most opposed the declaration of the red zone.
In Nembro, 14 people died in March 2019. In the same month this year there were 123 (a 750% increase). In Alzano Lombardo, in March 2019, 9 people died; this March, 101. In the city of Bergamo (120,000 inhabitants), 553 died in March, while in March 2019, 125 died. According to a study published by the Giornale di Brescia, in this Lombard province the number of infected people would be 20 times higher than the official figure, 15% of the population. And the same goes for the dead. According to this study, they would be twice as many as the official ones, that is, 3,000 in the province of Brescia alone. The lack of tests - on the living and the dead - makes it impossible to carry out a reliable count. What we do know is that Italy is the country in the world with the most deaths from Covid-19, around 18,000, and the majority are from the industrial north.
Now, faced with thousands of dead bodies and a population that is beginning to turn its grief into anger, everyone is shaking off the blame. The governor of Lombardy, leghista Attilio Fontana, blames the central government and claims that he was not stricter because they did not let him. In fact, if he had wanted to he could have been, as were the governors of Emilia Romagna, Lazio and Campania, who decreed red zones in their regions. The truth is that no authority has been up to the task, except the mayors of the small towns, who are the only ones who have recognised - and publicly denounced - the pressure from the industrialists, who were besieging them with calls to try to prevent or postpone the closure of the factories. From a wounded Bergamo and still in shock, the citizens are beginning to organise themselves to ask for the facts to be clarified and for someone to at least assume responsibility for having allowed economic interests to take precedence over the health - that is, the life - of the workers of Bergamasca. Many of them, incidentally, are precarious.
AUTHOR
Alba Sidera
** Original in Spanish posted at : https://ctxt.es/es/20200401/Politica/31884/Alba-Sidera-Italia-coronavirus-lombardia-patronal-economia-muertes.htm
** English Translation, courtesy of Willem Niehorster, posted on Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/willem.niehorster.7/posts/10157376613782400
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