An Italian delivery man collapsed and died while on the job in the city of La Spezia on Monday, according to local media. The national trade union organisation UIL – Italian Labour Union – said it cannot rule out that the worker died because of the heat, as the city reported temperatures nearing 30°C.
ADVERTISEMENTThe worker, according to reports, collapsed after delivering a parcel in the same home where he had made his last delivery around 13:30, the hottest time of the day.
“In the last few years, the home delivery sector has exploded, timings are frantic and don’t keep in mind the wellbeing of workers,” a note shared by UIL Transport Secretary Giovanni Ciaccio with Italy’s news agency ANSA reads.
“Employers are always seeking more productivity from workers, without considering the human factor, the worker’s age, the weather conditions and the intense heat. We need to intervene before it’s too late, reducing working hours and the load carried by workers, because it’s impossible to sustain the rhythm they’re forced to work at for many years.”
The worker, whose identity has not been disclosed to the public, was an employee of a delivery company acting on behalf of Italy’s SDA. The company said they were ready to support his family.
The extreme heat that has plagued much of Europe this summer, especially in the south of the continent, can be linked to the devastating impact of climate change, which is expected to bring increasingly hotter summers.
Europe in particular has been warming up twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to a recent report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European Copernicus network.
The human body has a critical upper temperature beyond which it starts malfunctioning and suffers heat stress, a condition that can lead to more serious symptoms and, in the most severe cases, deaths.
Many countries across Europe lag behind in terms of introducing heat safety regulations for their workers, including Italy.
Soaring temperatures in Europe have raised alarm bells for workers as well as for homeless people, who charities say are at risk of life-threatening illnesses.
