"Service sector workers are increasingly left alone to guard a shop, a public establishment, or a workplace for hours on end. This routine is increasingly putting them at risk."
UIL Sardegna and UIL Tucs Sardegna have denounced this, calling for a serious rethink on work organization and, above all, safety. "The 'ghost workers' are now joined by 'lone workers' due to the progressive reduction in staff," denounce general secretaries Fulvia Murru of UIL Sardegna and Cristiano Ardau of UIL Tucs Sardegna following a recent study on the sector. "Shifts are organized to excessively reduce labor costs, leading to situations where employees are left completely alone at work, sometimes even in the evenings and nights, having to simultaneously manage the opening and closing of the premises, customers, the cash register, the movement of goods, and the management of any emergencies."
According to the union, " working alone means being more vulnerable . An illness, a fall, an assault, or worse, a robbery like the one that recently occurred in Cagliari, or any other emergency situation, take on completely different characteristics when there is no one else in the workplace who can intervene immediately or call for help."
According to the union, this also includes the stress and psychological pressure "derived from the responsibility of having to manage the store and any critical situations alone. Often, the workers are classified as simple workers or unskilled office workers."
For the UIL, "safety cannot be sacrificed on the altar of cost and staff reduction. It's not enough to state that an activity can physically be carried out by a single person," Murru and Aradu point out. "It's necessary to evaluate whether that same activity can be carried out in truly safe conditions when the worker is completely alone."
(Unioneonline/AD)
