The first legislative regulation on workplace safety dates back to the late 19th century, arising from the need to try to curb the accident phenomenon resulting from unregulated growth of work within factories and from the increasingly widespread and unscrupulous use of machinery and equipment lacking basic safety measures.
The issue of workplace safety arose, in fact, with the explosion of the 19th-century industrial revolution, which led to the phenomenon of mass migration from the countryside to the cities of a large number of workers to work in the new factories, providing the labor force needed for large-scale production of goods and services. However, workers soon began to organize themselves, even at the union level, both due to the unhealthy working conditions and the severity of the working conditions they endured, and to demand improvements in their working conditions, including issues of exploitation, safety, and the healthiness of the workplaces.
It was therefore essential to establish regulations in the field of safety and workplace injuries: at the end of the 19th century, the first legal provisions were issued, which over time were replaced by new and increasingly comprehensive regulations, as legislation had to necessarily adapt to technological progress and the emergence of new production methods that involved the introduction of new health risks for workers.
The current regulatory framework regarding safety and health in the workplace is the result of measures taken at three different historical moments:
- the first moment relates to the introduction of the Civil Code, Criminal Code, and Constitution;
- the second moment consists of regulations issued from the 1950s to the 1980s, created to reconcile the changing needs of political, social, and industrial realities following the post-war period with the increasingly demanding need for workplace safety protection;
- the third moment includes regulations issued from the 1990s to today, as a consequence of the transposition of EU directives and the awareness of the active involvement of workers in managing workplace safety: in this context, Legislative Decree 626/94, now Legislative Decree 81/08, was enacted.