Italy: New Proposals to International Cooperation

A variety of trade union representatives and experts were invited to comment on the recommendations of the University of Padova’s report titled “Exploitation and Migrant Workers’ Struggles in the Italian Logistics and Tourism Sectors” (https://migrationonline.cz/italy_country_report.pdf). We invited academic researchers, union officials and activists of grassroots organizations whose expertise span not only the two labour market sectors we analysed in our field research – logistics and hospitality industry – but also others.

In addition, we screened the short documentary video “Warehouse Workers: Exploitation and Struggles in the Italian Logistics Sector” produced by the research unit of the University of Padova with the support of Carlo Freda, which gave room to debate the best possible strategies for solidarity with workers and for combating labour rights violations.

All participants reported on their sector of expertise, highlighting the forms of exploitations and the struggles to improve workers’ rights. The main debates were on:

- Subcontracting in its different forms, such as foremen in the agriculture, coops in the logistic sector and recruiting agencies in the hospitality industry;

- Strategies adopted by trade unions to improve labour citizenship, in particular two different approaches were discussed, that of grassroots organizations (ADL-Cobas and USB) which is more focused on workers’ unionization and active participation in the organization, and that of the confederal trade unions (CGIL), which is more attentive to the institutional and legal framework;

- The issue of workers’ isolation which affects domestic workers in particular

The LABCIT project results and the video were well received by the participants, especially the proposal concerning the development of a European legal framework and a European labour inspectorate able to improve labour citizenship. The roundtable concluded with the encouragement to develop transnational links between trade unions, but the participants underlined the practical difficulties to do it, in particular for what concerns language barriers. The only organization that is working in this direction is the USB, which is cooperating with a Senegalese trade union in order to support returnees in obtaining their retirement benefits.

Among the participants were: Gennaro Avallone, University of Salerno, expert on the agriculture sector in the Southern Italy; Gianni Boetto, representative of the grassroots trade Union ADL-Cobas of Padova; Umberto Franciosi, rempresentative of the FLAI-CGIL (Federation for food processing industry of the trade union confederation CGIL); Francesco Iannuzzi, Ph.D. student of the University of Padova, expert on the hospitality industry and member of the LABCIT project; Gianluca Nigro, expert on refugee issue; Raffaella Maioni, representative of the Acli-Colf, an association active on the defence domestic and care workers’ rights; Mimmo Perrotta, University of Bergamo, an expert on the agriculture industry in the Southern Italy; Manila Ricci, representative of the grassroots trade Union ADL-Cobas of Rimini; Devi Sacchetto, University of Padova, expert on labour and migration studies and scientific coordinator of the Italian Unit of the LABCIT project; Aboubakar Soumahoro, representative of the grassroots trade union USB; Alessandro Ventura, representative of the grassroots organization Laboratorio Pro-Fuga Foggia; Francesca Alice Vianello, University of Padova; expert on gender and migration studies and coordinator of the Italian Unit of the LABCIT project.

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