In 2023, according to Istat data, there were approximately 200 thousand irregular workers employed in the agricultural sector with an irregularity rate for employees of 30%. Among these, working women, potential victims of exploitation, number around 55 thousand, of which the vast majority work in the informal sector.
Starvation wages, humiliation, illegal work in the fields, as well as a lot of fraud with which contributions are diverted to family members and clansmen who certainly don’t work in those fields. It’s the terrible photograph taken by the seventh Agromafia and gangmastering report of the Placido Rizzotto Observatory of Flai Cgil, which sheds light on a sector that alone is worth 73.5 billion euros, almost always based on exploitation and illegal work.
From the pages of the report it can be seen that, if according to the latest available data from the Ministry of Economy and Finance (2020), the set of companies, regardless of the production sector, which practice regular work would amount to approximately 60% at national, while those who use gray labor are around 30% and black labor is the remaining 10%. From the numbers that emerge from the 2023 Annual Report of the INL, which depends on the Ministry of Labour, a rather irregularity rate equal to 69.8%, and in the agricultural sector, out of a total of 3,529 inspections completed, 2,090 detected irregularities, equal to 59.2%.
Furthermore, in the checks following the murder of the agricultural worker Satnam Singh, an irregularity emerged ranging from 66% of the first inspection, to 57% of the second and 53% of the third and which after this news disclosed by the Ministry and the police forces order with bombastic press releases. It’s a shame, however, that no follow-up was followed and we returned to the ordinariness of inspections which are only double, in an entire year, than those carried out in only three actions between July and August.
Furthermore, there is the drama of poor laborof those who work for a living, but have starvation wages. According to data processed by the Placido Rizzotto Observatory, it is approximately The average annual gross salary is 6 thousand euros of agricultural employees in Italy, and the average is 7,500 euros.
The 4 worst Regions
In Basilicataaccording to estimates from the most updated Istat data (2023), there are approximately 5 thousand irregular workers in the primary sector. The data refers only to employees resident in the Region, to which are added the approximately 5/7 thousand casual workers and commuters exploited which reach the main agricultural contexts of the regional territory. This figure would bring the total number of workers subjected to different forms of labor exploitation within the Lucanian borders to more than 10,000 units, especially in periods in which there is a greater need for manpower to be allocated to unskilled tasks.
In the provinces of Trento and Bolzanohowever, a total number of more than is estimated 6,000 non-standard or completely irregular workers in the primary sector and in the meat processing/slaughtering food sectorof which a number ranging between 4,000 and 4,600 are those calculated on the basis of the rate of work irregularities referring to the Trentino-Alto Adige region (19%) and approximately 1,500/2,000 are asylum seekers and refugees hosted in the reception centers on the territory.
In the territory of Crotonehowever, it is estimated that a number fluctuating between the 11,000 and 12,000 units are employed in a non-standard way (black or gray work). This figure also includes around 4/5 thousand foreign workers who arrive there every year for processing phases that require peaks in the workforce, such as harvesting for example.
As for the Piedmontfinally, the number of workers irregularly employed in the agricultural sector or subjected to heavy forms of exploitation varies between 8 and 10,000 units. In the province of Asti there are 32 different localities in which informal (grey and black) work relationships, labor intermediation and heavy forms of exploitation take place, with the involvement of around 2,000 workers.
The structural nature of poor, precarious and exploited work is evident in a sector which records very high economic values. The striking fact is therefore that, to the over 70 billion in economic margins generated, women and men contribute, who on average earn just over 6 thousand euros a year, often subjected to phenomena of exploitation and gangmastering, with conspicuous segments of the “supply chain exploitation” controlled by organized crime.
HERE you can find the complete report.
