This is how money for workers' safety disappears

Italy experiences a dramatic rate of approximately three workplace deaths per day (2,77 to be precise), with statistics that place us among the worst in Europe in terms of safety: 3,3 deaths per 100,000 workers, compared to the European average of 1,3. According to official data from the National Institute of Labor (INAIL), only France and Bulgaria fare worse.

These statistics, beyond individual incidents, added to the 600 workplace accidents reported to INAIL each year, reveal the inadequacy of facilities and construction sites. Hence the investments, supported by the government and Parliament, to finance companies' expenses for, for example, replacing old and dangerous equipment, updating protective systems with technology, and ensuring worker safety, even when they are supposedly performing potentially risky activities.

The funds on the table, in theory, are considerable and allow, through an annual call for proposals, non-repayable reimbursements of up to 65 percent of expenses incurred by companies to improve the general safety of their workplaces. INAIL is in charge of both selecting the applications and disbursing the funds. And here we enter a dark haven, with a mechanism specifically designed to waste time and money.

Each year, INAIL has a €600 million grant available to companies. And how does it do it? It opens the call for applications almost a year in advance (for example, the process for distributing the 2026 funds began in the fall of 2025, and the deadline for submitting applications is May 2026), and then relies on a system that INAIL itself defines as "blind and selective." Essentially, companies must first upload their applications, along with the related safety plans, to the INAIL-managed platform. Only the first 6 applications enter the final list, and then the click-day lottery takes place. In a single day, and in just a few seconds, the funds are allocated regardless of the quality of the applications, which is then evaluated at a later stage. 

The documentation required to access the grant is very complex and detailed, and this is understandable. But since everything you play with the click day lottery Companies are being held by the knife: they must pay external consultants, especially small businesses, to prepare the project for submission, and wait for the results of the click day to find out whether they will enter a final evaluation phase. Meanwhile, if a company is serious and truly wants to make its workplaces safer, the project is completed anyway, with an advance payment of the costs and the hope that they will be recognized and reimbursed. 

A mechanism that is decidedly unfavorable especially for small businesses, so tortuous and opaque it cannot, in the end, add up to double waste of money and time.Years can pass between the application submitted on the platform and the actual reimbursement, because after Click Day, INAIL distributes the funds to the local offices that are then called upon to disburse them. At that point, each project is examined in detail (another delay...) and rejected if it doesn't meet the legal requirements. This is quite common in the country of the crafty, when it comes to applying for bonuses and non-repayable grants, so much so that several projects are canceled, despite having overcome the Caudine Forks of Click Day, because it is discovered that, under the guise of safety, the entrepreneur was attempting to obtain payment for other expenses, including routine administration, from the State.

And what would you expect in the face of post-Click Day rejections? That those who fail will be replaced by the top-ranked companies, behind the companies that entered through the Click Day raffle. But no: no replacement is planned to avoid further delays in allocating funds.

The result is that at the end of this gymkhana of waste, a good portion of the money (between 40 and 50 percent) disappears And they aren't recovered, as happens punctually every year. The obtuse rerun of this horror film has already cost over a billion euros in wasted money, allocated but not allocated, to the detriment of workers who are unsafe and businesses acting in good faith. Meanwhile, when all is said and done, the winners aren't always the companies that truly invest in safety, but those that best navigate the morass of Italian bureaucracy. And see you at next year's roulette. 

Read also:

• Workplace deaths: more than three people die every day in Italy.
• Ai Safety, the system invented at the University of Pisa to prevent accidents at work.