• Exploitation, vulnérabilité et résistance : le cas des #ouvriers_agricoles indiens dans l’Agro Pontino

      De nombreuses représentations trompeuses continuent à peser sur l’exploitation des ouvriers agricoles étrangers en Italie, rendant difficile la compréhension du phénomène et l’intervention sur ses causes réelles. Cet article tente de questionner les principaux lieux communs sur le sujet, en analysant un cas particulièrement éclairant : celui de la communauté #Pendjabi de #religion_sikh employée sur l’Agro Pontino, dans le Latium. Cette étude de cas permet, d’une part, de faire ressortir les conditions d’exploitation systémiques, masquées derrière des mécanismes apparemment légaux ; de l’autre, il révèle que même les individus les plus vulnérables peuvent résister à l’exploitation et revendiquer activement leurs droits.

      https://www.cairn.info/revue-confluences-mediterranee-2019-4-page-45.htm

    • #In_migrazione

      In Migrazione è una Società Cooperativa Sociale nata nel 2015 dalla volontà di persone impegnate nella ricerca, nell’accoglienza e nel sostegno agli stranieri in Italia.

      Diversi percorsi professionali e umani che hanno attraversato un ampio spaccato di esperienze diverse e che con In Migrazione si sono uniti per dare vita ad un soggetto collettivo, innovativo, aperto e trasparente.

      Una Cooperativa nata per sperimentare nuovi progetti di qualità e innovative metodologie al fine di interpretare e concretizzare percorsi d’aiuto efficaci verso i migranti che vivono nel nostro Paese situazioni di disagio e difficoltà. Esperienze concrete che sappiano diventare buone pratiche riproducibili, per contribuire a migliorare quel sistema di accoglienza e inclusione sociale degli stranieri.

      Le nostre ricerche e le concrete sperimentazioni progettuali mettono al centro la persona, con i suoi peculiari bisogni, aspettative e sogni.

      Mettiamo a disposizione queste esperienze e le nostre metodologie alle altre associazioni, cooperative, Enti pubblici e privati, professionisti e volontari del settore, convinti che nel sociale non possano e non debbano esistere copyright.

      https://www.inmigrazione.it

    • Progetto “Dignità-Joban Singh”, contro la schiavitù dei braccianti

      Una serie di sportelli di accoglienza, ascolto e sostegno, ma anche di assistenza legale, sociale, di formazione e di informazione, in tutta la provincia di Latina. Un progetto per dare voce alle vittime di lavoro schiavo, in memoria del giovane di origini indiane, morto suicida il 6 giugno 2020 a Sabaudia

      Si chiama Dignità-Joban Singh ed è il progetto in corso organizzato dall’associazione Tempi Moderni contro le varie forme di schiavismo e sfruttamento che mortificano e riducono in schiavitù migliaia di persone, immigrati e italiani, indiani e africani, uomini e donne, in questa Italia fondata sul lavoro ma anche su una persistente presenza di razzisti, violenti, mafiosi e di sfruttatori che mortificano la democrazia ed esprimono chiaramente la loro natura predatoria.

      Joban Singh, di appena 25 anni e residente nel residence “Bella Farnia Mare”, nel Comune di Sabaudia, in provincia di Latina, il 6 giugno scorso è stato trovato senza vita all’interno del suo appartamento. Joban decise di impiccarsi dopo essere entrato in Italia mediante un trafficante di esseri umani indiano, essere stato gravemente sfruttato in una delle maggiori aziende agricole dell’Agro Pontino e aver subito il rifiuto da parte del padrone alla sua richiesta di emersione dall’irregolarità mediante art. 103 del Decreto Rilancio (D.L. n. 34/2020) del governo.

      Dedicare questo progetto alla sua memoria, per non dimenticare ciò che significa vivere come uno schiavo in un paese libero, è un impegno che viene sottoscritto da Tempi Moderni ma che può camminare solo sulle gambe di tanti, o meglio di una comunità di persone responsabili e ribelle contro i padroni e i padrini di oggi.

      In questa Italia ci sono, secondo il rapporto Agromafie e caporalato dell’Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto della Flai-Cgil (2020), tra 400 e 450mila lavoratori e lavoratrici che solo in agricoltura risultano esposti allo sfruttamento e al caporalato. Di queste ultime, più di 180mila sono impiegate in condizione di grave vulnerabilità sociale e forte sofferenza occupazionale. Secondo il sesto Rapporto Agromafia dell’Eurispes, il business delle agromafie, che comprendono le forme di grave sfruttamento, vale 24,5 miliardi di euro l’anno, con un balzo, nel corso del 2018, del 12,4%.

      Un fiume di denaro che è espressione di un’ideologia della disuguaglianza penetrata nei processi culturali delle società occidentali e troppo spesso relazione fondamentale del mondo del lavoro, in particolare del lavoro di fatica. È questo un sistema che produce lo schiavismo contemporaneo, come più volte il “Rapporto Italia”, ancora dell’Eurispes, ha messo in luce.

      Ancora nel 2019, ad esempio, l’Eurispes aveva esplicitamente dichiarato che lo sfruttamento è una fattispecie criminale le cui principali vittime sono i migranti provenienti dall’Europa dell’Est, dall’Africa, dall’Asia, dall’America Latina. Lo sfruttamento, infatti, risultava più diffuso nei comparti più esposti alle irregolarità, al sommerso e all’abuso, dove chi fornisce prestazioni lavorative è in condizione di maggiore vulnerabilità.

      Si registrano dunque casi più numerosi, ancora secondo l’Eurispes, nell’agricoltura e pastorizia, a danno di polacchi, bulgari, rumeni, originari dell’ex U.R.S.S., africani e, in misura crescente, pakistani e indiani; nell’edilizia, a danno di europei dell’Est; nel settore tessile e manifatturiero, a danno di cinesi; nel lavoro domestico (soprattutto come badanti), a danno di soggetti provenienti dall’Europa dell’Est, dall’ex U.R.S.S., dall’Asia e dall’America del Sud.

      Insomma, uomini e donne a cui viene violata la dignità ogni giorno, costretti ad eseguire gli ordini del padrone, a sottostare ai suoi interessi e logiche di dominio. Quando questo potere si esercita nei confronti delle donne, lo sfruttamento assume caratteri devastanti. Ci sono infatti anche casi di violenza sessuale, di subordinazione delle lavoratrici immigrate alle logiche di dominio del boss, del padrone, del capo di turno.

      In provincia di Latina e precisamente a Sabaudia, appena poco prima di Natale, un’operazione denominata “Schiavo” e condotta dalla guardia di finanza, ha permesso di liberare dallo sfruttamento 290 lavoratori, soprattutto di origine indiana, che da anni venivano retribuiti con salari mensili inferiori anche del 60% rispetto a quelli previsti dal contratto provinciale, senza il riconoscimento degli straordinari, con l’obbligo di lavorare anche la domenica, impiegati senza le necessarie misure di sicurezza.

      Dunque, cosa fare? Avere il coraggio di capire, organizzarsi e agire collettivamente. Non si hanno alternative. La povertà, lo sfruttamento, la schiavitù, la violenza, non si abrogano per decreto. Non basta una legge. Serve un’azione collettiva espressione di una volontà radicale di contrasto di questo fenomeno mediante innanzitutto l’accoglienza e l’ascolto delle sue vittime, la costruzione di una relazione orizzontale con loro, dialettica, professionale e anche in questo coraggiosa, perché si deve prevedere l’azione di denuncia dei padroni insieme a quella della tutela.

      Ed è questa la sintesi perfetta del progetto Dignità–Joban Singh che ha organizzato e avviato una serie di sportelli di accoglienza, ascolto, sostegno e anche di assistenza legale, sociale, di formazione e di informazione, in tutta la provincia di Latina. Si tratta di sportelli che hanno il compito di accogliere e di fornire assistenza legale gratuita alle donne e agli uomini gravemente sfruttati, di qualunque nazionalità, vittime di tratta e caporalato, di violenze, anche sessuali, obbligati al silenzio o alla subordinazione.

      Insomma, un progetto realizzato grazie all’ausilio di avvocati di grande esperienza e con mediatori culturali affidabili e professionali, fondato sulla pedagogia degli oppressi di Freire e gli insegnamenti di Don Milani, Don Primo Mazzolari e Don Sardelli. Un progetto che vuole anche contrastare le strategie (razziste) mediatiche, politiche e sociali di stigmatizzazione, stereotipizzazione ed esclusione di coloro che sono considerati antropologicamente diversi.

      Un progetto che però ha bisogno del sostegno della maggioranza di questo paese, donne e uomini che non vogliono vivere sotto il ricatto delle mafie, dei violenti, degli sfruttatori, dei neoschiavisti, dei razzisti, in favore di un’Italia che merita un futuro diverso, migliore.

      https://www.nigrizia.it/notizia/progetto-dignita-joban-singh-contro-la-schiavitu-dei-braccianti

    • Marco Omizzolo

      Marco Omizzolo is a sociologist, researcher and journalist, who has been documenting and denoucing human rights violations against Sikh migrant workers exploited in the fields in the province of Latina (central Italy). In a context where “agrimafia” is rampant and many farms are controlled by criminal organisations, migrants have to work for up to 13 hours a day in inhumane conditions and under the orders of “caporali” (gangmasters), they earn well below the minimum wage and they have to live in cramped accommodation. To document their situation, Marco has worked undercover in the fields and he also went to Punjab (India) to follow an Indian human trafficker, where he investigated the connections between human trafficking and the system of agrimafia. Marco is also one of the founders of InMigrazione, an organisation that supports migrant workers informing them about their rights, helping them organise and fight for labour rights, and giving them the legal support they might need. In 2016, Marco and some Sikh activists managed to organise the first mass strike in Latina, joined by over 4000 workers.

      Because of his work - and particularly because of his investigations denouncing the criminal organisations involved in the agribusiness and the local food industry - Marco Omizzolo has been receiving serious threats. His car has been repeatedly damaged, he is often under surveillance and he has been forced to relocate because of the threats received.

      https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/marco-omizzolo

    • The Indian migrants lured into forced labor on Mussolini’s farmland

      Gurinder Dhillon still remembers the day he realized he had been tricked. It was 2009, and he had just taken out a $16,000 loan to start a new life. Originally from Punjab, India, Dhillon had met an agent in his home village who promised him the world.

      “He sold me this dream,” Dhillon, 45, said. A new life in Europe. Good money — enough to send back to his family in India. Clothes, a house, plenty of work. He’d work on a farm, picking fruits and vegetables, in a place called the Pontine Marshes, a vast area of farmland in the Lazio region, south of Rome, Italy.

      He took out a sizable loan from the Indian agents, who in return organized his visa, ticket and travel to Italy. The real cost of this is around $2,000 — the agents were making an enormous profit.

      “The thing is, when I got here, the whole situation changed. They played me,” Dhillon said. “They brought me here like a slave.”

      On his first day out in the fields, Dhillon climbed into a trailer with about 60 other people and was then dropped off in his assigned hoop house. That day, he was on the detail for zucchini, tomatoes and eggplant. It was June, and under the plastic, it was infernally hot. It felt like at least 100 degrees, Dhillon remembers. He sweated so much that his socks were soaked. He had to wring them out halfway through the day and then put them back on — there was no time to change his clothes. As they worked, an Italian boss yelled at them constantly to work faster and pick more.

      Within a few hours of that first shift, it dawned on Dhillon that he had been duped. “I didn’t think I had been tricked — I knew I had,” he said. This wasn’t the life or the work he had been promised.

      What he got instead was 3.40 euros (about $3.65) an hour, for a workday of up to 14 hours. The workers weren’t allowed bathroom breaks.

      On these wages, he couldn’t see how he would ever repay the enormous loan he had taken out. He was working alongside some other men, also from India, who had been there for years. ”Will it be like this forever?” he asked them. “Yes,” they said. “It will be like this forever.”

      Ninety years ago, a very different harvest was taking place. Benito Mussolini was celebrating the first successful wheat harvest of the Pontine Marshes. It was a new tradition for the area, which for millennia had been nothing but a vast, brackish, barely-inhabited swamp.

      No one managed to tame it — until Mussolini came to power and launched his “Battle for Grain.” The fascist leader had a dream for the area: It would provide food and sustenance for the whole country.

      Determined to make the country self-sufficient as a food producer, Mussolini spoke of “freeing Italy from the slavery of foreign bread” and promoted the virtues of rural land workers. At the center of his policy was a plan to transform wild, uncultivated areas into farmland. He created a national project to drain Italy’s swamps. And the boggy, mosquito-infested Pontine Marshes were his highest priority.

      His regime shipped in thousands of workers from all over Italy to drain the waterlogged land by building a massive system of pumps and canals. Billions of gallons of water were dredged from the marshes, transforming them into fertile farmland.

      The project bore real fruit in 1933. Thousands of black-shirted Fascists gathered to hear a brawny-armed, suntanned Mussolini mark the first wheat harvest of the Pontine Marshes.

      "The Italian people will have the necessary bread to live,” Il Duce told the crowd, declaring how Italy would never again be reliant on other countries for food. “Comrade farmers, the harvest begins.”

      The Pontine Marshes are still one of the most productive areas of Italy, an agricultural powerhouse with miles of plastic-covered hoop houses, growing fruit and vegetables by the ton. They are also home to herds of buffalo that make Italy’s famous buffalo mozzarella. The area provides food not just for Italy but for Europe and beyond. Jars of artichokes packed in oil, cans of Italian plum tomatoes and plump, ripe kiwi fruits often come from this part of the world. But Mussolini’s “comrade farmers” harvesting the land’s bounty are long gone. Tending the fields today are an estimated 30,000 agricultural workers like Dhillon, most hailing from Punjab, India. For many of them — and by U.N. standards — the working conditions are akin to slave labor.

      When Urmila Bhoola, the U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary slavery, visited the area, she found that many working conditions in Italy’s agricultural sector amounted to forced labor due to the amount of hours people work, the low salaries and the gangmasters, or “caporali,” who control them.

      The workers here are at the mercy of the caporali, who are the intermediaries between the farm workers and the owners. Some workers are brought here with residency and permits, while others are brought fully off the books. Regardless, they report making as little as 3-4 euros an hour. Sometimes, though, they’re barely paid at all. When Samrath, 34, arrived in Italy, he was not paid for three months of work on the farms. His boss claimed his pay had gone entirely into taxes — but when he checked with the government office, he found his taxes hadn’t been paid either.

      Samrath is not the worker’s real name. Some names in this story have been changed to protect the subjects’ safety.

      “I worked for him for all these months, and he didn’t pay me. Nothing. I worked for free for at least three months,” Samrath told me. “I felt so ashamed and sad. I cried so much.” He could hardly bring himself to tell his family at home what had happened.

      I met Samrath and several other workers on a Sunday on the marshes. For the Indian Sikh workers from Punjab, this is usually the only day off for the week. They all gather at the temple, where they pray together and share a meal of pakoras, vegetable curry and rice. The women sit on one side, the men on the other. It’s been a long working week — for the men, out in the fields or tending the buffaloes, while the women mostly work in the enormous packing centers, boxing up fruits and vegetables to be sent out all over Europe.

      Another worker, Ramneet, told me how he waited for his monthly check — usually around 1,300 euros (about $1,280) per month, for six days’ work a week at 12-14 hours per day. But when the check came, the number on it was just 125 euros (about $250).

      “We were just in shock,” Ramneet said. “We panicked — our monthly rent here is 600 euros.” His boss claimed, again, that the money had gone to taxes. It meant he had worked almost for free the entire month. Other workers explained to me that even when they did have papers, they could risk being pushed out of the system and becoming undocumented if their bosses refused to issue them payslips.

      Ramneet described how Italian workers on the farms are treated differently from Indian workers. Italian workers, he said, get to take an hour for lunch. Indian workers are called back after just 20 minutes — despite having their pay cut for their lunch hour.

      “When Meloni gives her speeches, she talks about getting more for the Italians,” Ramneet’s wife Ishleen said, referring to Italy’s new prime minister and her motto, “Italy and Italians first.” “She doesn’t care about us, even though we’re paying taxes. When we’re working, we can’t even take a five-minute pause, while the Italian workers can take an hour.”

      Today, Italy is entering a new era — or, some people argue, returning to an old one. In September, Italians voted in a new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. As well as being the country’s first-ever female prime minister, she is also Italy’s most far-right leader since Mussolini. Her supporters — and even some leaders of her party, Brothers of Italy — show a distinct reverence for Mussolini’s National Fascist Party.

      In the first weeks of Meloni’s premiership, thousands of Mussolini admirers made a pilgrimage to Il Duce’s birthplace of Predappio to pay homage to the fascist leader, making the Roman salute and hailing Meloni as a leader who might resurrect the days of fascism. In Latina, the largest city in the marshes, locals interviewed by national newspapers talked of being excited about Meloni’s victory — filled with hopes that she might be true to her word and bring the area back to its glory days in the time of Benito Mussolini. One of Meloni’s undersecretaries has run a campaign calling for a park in Latina to return to its original name: Mussolini Park.

      During her campaign, a video emerged of Meloni discussing Mussolini as a 19-year-old activist. “I think Mussolini was a good politician. Everything he did, he did for Italy,” she told journalists. Meloni has since worked to distance herself from such associations with fascism. In December, she visited Rome’s Jewish ghetto as a way of acknowledging Mussolini’s crimes against humanity. “The racial laws were a disgrace,” she told the crowd.

      A century on from Italy’s fascist takeover, Meloni’s victory has led to a moment of widespread collective reckoning, as a national conversation takes place about how Mussolini should be remembered and whether Meloni’s premiership means Italy is reconnecting with its fascist past.

      Unlike in Germany, which tore down — and outlawed — symbols of Nazi terror, reminders of Mussolini’s rule remain all over Italy. There was no moment of national reckoning after the war ended and Mussolini was executed. Hundreds of fascist monuments and statues dot the country. Slogans left over from the dictatorship can be seen on post offices, municipal buildings and street signs. Collectively, when Italians discuss Mussolini, they do remember his legacy of terror — his alliance with Adolf Hitler, anti-Semitic race laws and the thousands of Italian Jews he sent to the death camps. But across the generations, Italians also talk about other legacies of his regime — they talk of the infrastructure and architecture built during the period and of how he drained the Pontine Marshes and rid them of malaria, making the land into an agricultural haven.

      Today in the Pontine Marshes, which some see as a place brought into existence by Il Duce — and where the slogans on one town tower praise “the land that Mussolini redeemed from deadly sterility” — the past is bristling with the present.

      “The legend that has come back to haunt this town, again and again, is that it’s a fascist city. Of course, it was created in the fascist era, but here we’re not fascists — we’re dismissed as fascists and politically sidelined as a result,” Emilio Andreoli, an author who was born in Latina and has written books about the city’s history, said. Politicians used to target the area as a key campaigning territory, he said, but it has since fallen off most leaders’ agendas. And indeed, in some ways, Latina is a place that feels forgotten. Although it remains a top agricultural producer, other kinds of industry and infrastructure have faltered. Factories that once bustled here lie empty. New, faster roads and railways that were promised to the city by previous governments never materialized.

      Meloni did visit Latina on her campaign trail and gave speeches about reinvigorating the area with its old strength. “This is a land where you can breathe patriotism. Where you breathe the fundamental and traditional values that we continue to defend — despite being considered politically incorrect,” she told the crowd.

      But the people working this land are entirely absent from Meloni’s rhetorical vision. Marco Omizzolo, a professor of sociology at the University of Sapienza in Rome, has for years studied and engaged with the largely Sikh community of laborers from India who work on the marshes.

      Omizzolo explained to me how agricultural production in Italy has systematically relied on the exploitation of migrant workers for decades.

      “Many people are in this,” he told me, when we met for coffee in Rome. “The owners of companies who employ the workers. The people who run the laborers’ daily work. Local and national politicians. Several mafia clans.”

      “Exploitation in the agricultural sector has been going on for centuries in Italy,” Giulia Tranchina, a researcher at Human Rights Watch focusing on migration, said. She described that the Italian peasantry was always exploited but that the system was further entrenched with the arrival of migrant workers. “The system has always treated migrants as manpower — as laborers to exploit, and never as persons carrying equal rights as Italian workers.” From where she’s sitting, Italy’s immigration laws appear to have been designed to leave migrants “dependent on the whims and the wills of their abusive employers,” Tranchina said.

      The system of bringing the workers to Italy — and keeping them there — begins in Punjab, India. Omizzolo described how a group of traffickers recruits prospective workers with promises of lucrative work abroad and often helps to arrange high-interest loans like the one that Gurinder took out. Omizzolo estimates that about a fifth of the Indian workers in the Pontine Marshes come via irregular routes, with some arriving from Libya, while many others are smuggled into Italy from Serbia across land and sea, aided by traffickers. Their situation is more perilous than those who arrived with visas and work permits, as they’re forced to work under the table without contracts, benefits or employment rights.

      Omizzolo knows it all firsthand. A Latina native, he grew up playing football by the vegetable and fruit fields and watching as migrant workers, first from North Africa, then from India, came to the area to work the land. He began studying the forces at play as a sociologist during his doctorate and even traveled undercover to Punjab to understand how workers are picked up and trafficked to Italy.

      As a scholar and advocate for stronger labor protections, he has drawn considerable attention to the exploitative systems that dominate the area. In 2016, he worked alongside Sikh laborers to organize a mass strike in Latina, in which 4,000 people participated. All this has made Omizzolo a target of local mafia forces, Indian traffickers and corrupt farm bosses. He has been surveilled and chased in the street and has had his car tires slashed. Death threats are nothing unusual. These days, he does not travel to Latina without police protection.

      The entire system could become even further entrenched — and more dangerous for anyone speaking out about it — under Meloni’s administration. The prime minister has an aggressively anti-migrant agenda, promising to stop people arriving on Italy’s shores in small boats. Her government has sent out a new fleet of patrol boats to the Libyan Coast Guard to try to block the crossings, while making it harder for NGOs to carry out rescue operations.

      At the end of February, at least 86 migrants drowned off the coast of Calabria in a shipwreck. When Meloni visited Calabria a few weeks later, she did not go to the beach where the migrants’ bodies were found or to the funeral home that took care of their remains. Instead, she announced a new policy: scrapping special protection residency permits for migrants.

      Tranchina, from Human Rights Watch, explained that getting rid of the “special protection” permits will leave many migrant workers in Italy, including those in the Pontine Marshes, effectively undocumented.

      “The situation is worsening significantly under the current government,” she said. “An army of people, who are currently working, paying taxes, renting houses, will now be forced to accept very exploitative working conditions — at times akin to slavery — out of desperation.”

      Omizzolo agreed. Meloni’s hostile environment campaign against arriving migrants is making people in the marshes feel “more fragile and blackmailable,” he told me.

      “Meloni is entrenching the current system in place in the Pontine Marshes,” Omizzolo said. “Her policies are interested in keeping things in their current state. Because the people who exploit the workers here are among her voter base.”

      And then there’s the matter of money and how people are paid. A few months into her administration, Meloni introduced a proposal to raise the ceiling for cash transactions from 2,000 euros (about $2,110) to 5,000 euros ($5,280), a move that critics saw as an attempt to better insulate black market and organized crime networks from state scrutiny.

      Workers describe that they were often paid in cash and that their bosses were always looking for ways to take them off the books. “We have to push them to pay us the official way and keep our contracts,” Rajvinder, 24, said. “They prefer to give us cash.” Being taken off a contract and paid under the table is a constant source of anxiety. “If I don’t have a work contract, my papers will expire after three months,” Samrath explained, describing how he would then become undocumented in Italy.

      Omizzolo says Meloni’s cash laws will continue to preserve the corruption and sustain a shadow economy that grips the workers coming to the Pontine Marshes. Even for people who once worked above the table, the new government’s laissez-faire attitude towards the shadow economy is pushing them back into obscurity. “That law is directly contributing to the black market — people who used to be on the books, and have proper contracts, are now re-entering the shadow economy,” he said.

      Tranchina, from Human Rights Watch, explained that getting rid of the “special protection” permits will leave many migrant workers in Italy, including those in the Pontine Marshes, effectively undocumented.

      “The situation is worsening significantly under the current government,” she said. “An army of people, who are currently working, paying taxes, renting houses, will now be forced to accept very exploitative working conditions — at times akin to slavery — out of desperation.”

      Omizzolo agreed. Meloni’s hostile environment campaign against arriving migrants is making people in the marshes feel “more fragile and blackmailable,” he told me.

      “Meloni is entrenching the current system in place in the Pontine Marshes,” Omizzolo said. “Her policies are interested in keeping things in their current state. Because the people who exploit the workers here are among her voter base.”

      And then there’s the matter of money and how people are paid. A few months into her administration, Meloni introduced a proposal to raise the ceiling for cash transactions from 2,000 euros (about $2,110) to 5,000 euros ($5,280), a move that critics saw as an attempt to better insulate black market and organized crime networks from state scrutiny.

      Workers describe that they were often paid in cash and that their bosses were always looking for ways to take them off the books. “We have to push them to pay us the official way and keep our contracts,” Rajvinder, 24, said. “They prefer to give us cash.” Being taken off a contract and paid under the table is a constant source of anxiety. “If I don’t have a work contract, my papers will expire after three months,” Samrath explained, describing how he would then become undocumented in Italy.

      Omizzolo says Meloni’s cash laws will continue to preserve the corruption and sustain a shadow economy that grips the workers coming to the Pontine Marshes. Even for people who once worked above the table, the new government’s laissez-faire attitude towards the shadow economy is pushing them back into obscurity. “That law is directly contributing to the black market — people who used to be on the books, and have proper contracts, are now re-entering the shadow economy,” he said.

      The idealistic image of the harvest was powerful propaganda at the time. Not shown were the workers, brought in from all over the country, who died of malaria while digging the trenches and canals to drain the marsh. It also stands in contrast to today’s reality. Workers are brought here from the other side of the world, on false pretenses, and find themselves trapped in a system with no escape from the brutal work schedule and the resulting physical and mental health risks. In October, a 24-year-old Punjabi farm worker in the town of Sabaudia killed himself. It’s not the first time a worker has died by suicide — depression and opioid addiction are common among the workforce.

      “We are all guilty, without exception. We have decided to lose this battle for democracy. Dear Jaspreet, forgive us. Or perhaps, better, haunt our consciences forever,” Omizzolo wrote on his Facebook page.

      Talwinder, 28, arrived on the marsh last year. “I had no hopes in India. I had no dreams, I had nothing. It is difficult here — in India, it was difficult in a different way. But at least [in India] I was working for myself.” His busiest months of the year are coming up — he’ll work without a day off. And although the mosquitoes no longer carry malaria, they still plague the workers. “They’re fatter than the ones in India,” he laughs. “I heard it’s because this place used to be a jungle.”

      Mussolini’s vision for the marsh was to turn it into an agricultural center for the whole of Italy, giving work to thousands of Italians and building up a strong working peasantry. Today, vegetables, olives and cheeses from the area are shipped to the United States and sold in upmarket stores to shoppers seeking authentic, artisan foods from the heart of the old world. But it comes at an enormous price to those who produce it. And under Meloni’s premiership, they only expect that cost to rise.

      “These days, if my family ask me if they should come here, like my nephew or relatives, I tell them no,” said Samrath. “Don’t come here. Stay where you are.”

      https://www.codastory.com/rewriting-history/indian-migrants-italy-pontine-marshes

  • Un nom pour un autre

    Après leur mariage, un couple quitte Calcutta pour s’installer à #New_York. Ashoke et Ashima ne connaissent pas beaucoup cette grande ville, et doivent donc lutter pour s’adapter à cet univers. Bientôt, un fils naît, que le père décide d’appeler Gogol en l’honneur de l’auteur russe. Lors de son adolescence, #Gogol va vite se faire aux habitudes new-yorkaises et oubliera aussi ses origines, mais son #prénom l’embarrasse.

    https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_nom_pour_un_autre
    #film #migrations #migrants_indiens #Etats-Unis #USA #deuxième_génération

  • Le catene della distribuzione - video d’inchiesta 2016

    Il trailer della video inchiesta di Leonardo Filippi, Maurizio Franco e Maria Panariello, finalista della quinta edizione del Premio Morrione. Tutor: Toni Capuozzo. Tema dell’inchiesta il rapporto tra la grande distribuzione organizzata e il sistema dell’agroalimentare.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByRDdv2bptY

    #agriculture #Italie #caporalato #vidéo #agro-business #supermarchés #travail #exploitation #supermarché
    cc @albertocampiphoto —> come trovare il film/DVD? Non riesco a capire...

    • Migrants treated as modern slaves in Italian fields

      Many migrants are forced to work in Italian fields over the summer for as many as 12 hours a day for almost no pay. At night, they sleep in tents under unhygienic conditions and are even forced to go without food.


      http://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/4236/migrants-treated-as-modern-slaves-in-italian-fields

    • ’An employer? No, we have a master’: the Sikhs secretly exploited in Italy

      After years of arduous, badly paid work in the fields of southern Italy, Singh reported his employer to the police. But in a country where justice moves at a glacial pace, abused migrant workers have scant incentive to come forward

      https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/dec/22/sikhs-secretly-exploited-in-italy-migrant-workers?CMP=twt_gu
      #sikh #inde #migrants_indiens #Pontina

    • Caporalato in agricoltura, Legacoop: «Finte cooperative per coprire lo sfruttamento»

      Il caporalato in agricoltura è una pratica criminale diffusa, emersa anche in Romagna. Qualche giorno fa il personale della Flai Cgil, attraverso la campagna «Ancora in campo», si è recato tra i filari in cerca di lavoratori sfruttati o irregolari. «L’utilizzo di finte cooperative e di società costituite allo scopo per offrire manodopera a basso costo con turni di lavoro massacranti, retribuzioni misere e la privazione dei diritti dei lavoratori, in gran parte stranieri sottoposti a vessazioni di ogni tipo, rappresentano le modalità con le quali si diffonde il fenomeno - spiegano da Legacoop Romagna - Di fronte a tutto ciò, torniamo a esprimere una totale condanna del fenomeno e un apprezzamento per le istituzioni e le organizzazioni d’impresa e sindacali che tentano di contrastarlo. La privazione dei diritti del lavoro e lo sfruttamento sono fomentati dalla profonda difficoltà economica in cui versano sempre più persone e dall’allentamento delle politiche di tutela dell’agricoltura, lasciata sempre più in balia di mercati volatili e una burocrazia soffocante».

      «Purtroppo vengono utilizzate anche false cooperative per coprire lo sfruttamento, cosa per noi doppiamente inaccettabile - commenta Stefano Patrizi, responsabile del settore agroalimentare di Legacoop Romagna - Si tratta di società registrate e spesso con sede legale fuori dall’Emilia-Romagna, in territori ben definiti. Ci aspettiamo che le Prefetture rafforzino ulteriormente la collaborazione con gli Enti Locali e le associazioni per contrastare il fenomeno: la filiera agricola di qualità italiana non può permettersi di venire macchiata dal mancato rispetto dei diritti fondamentali del lavoro. A tal proposito occorre anche accrescere le premialità, a partire dalla Politica Agricola Comune, per le imprese che dimostrano di saper rispettare adeguatamente il lavoro».

      http://www.ravennatoday.it/economia/caporalato-in-agricoltura-legacoop-finte-cooperative-per-coprire-lo-sfr

      #Emilie-Romagne #Romagne #coopérative

    • La morte dei braccianti riguarda tutti noi consumatori

      I due tragici incidenti sulle strade della Capitanata, in cui sono morti sedici lavoratori in tre giorni, riporta agli onori delle cronache il tema del lavoro in agricoltura e delle condizioni in cui si svolge, spesso demandato a eserciti di braccianti stranieri pagati a cottimo e in balia della piaga del caporalato.

      La raccolta del pomodoro – ma ancor di più quella dei finocchi, degli asparagi, dei broccoli – è affidata a questi lavoratori, che si muovono su furgoni scalcinati guidati da caporali o caposquadra lungo le strade del foggiano in cerca di un impiego a giornata.

      La legge contro il caporalato del 2016 ha avuto l’indubbio merito di portare la questione all’attenzione dell’opinione pubblica e di svolgere un’azione deterrente su quegli imprenditori agricoli che sfruttavano i braccianti. Ma è rimasta largamente inapplicata sulle azioni da intraprendere per arginare veramente il fenomeno. Se non si prevedono alloggi per i braccianti stagionali e trasporti verso i campi, se non si mette in piedi un approccio in cui la domanda e l’offerta di lavoro siano regolamentate, se non si riformano i centri per l’impiego del tutto non funzionanti, i lavoratori continueranno a vivere nei cosiddetti ghetti e a muoversi su furgoncini malridotti, insicuri e gestiti in parte dai caporali.

      Il caporalato è un effetto della mancata organizzazione, non una causa. È un meccanismo di intermediazione informale che prospera grazie all’assenza di un sistema di organizzazione del lavoro in agricoltura.

      C’è poi un altro tema che riguarda tutti noi nella nostra quotidianità: quello del cibo a basso costo. Il pomodoro raccolto a mano dai braccianti morti nei giorni scorsi finisce nelle passate che sono poi vendute a prezzi irrisori nei supermercati. Molte insegne della grande distribuzione organizzata (Gdo) operano un’azione di strozzamento e di riduzione dei prezzi che non può non ripercuotersi sugli anelli a monte della filiera.

      I contratti capestro, le aste online al doppio ribasso, i listing fee e le altre pratiche sleali della Gdo hanno effetti devastanti sugli operatori agricoli, che non riescono a far reddito e di conseguenza cercano di tagliare i costi di produzione, in particolare quelli del lavoro.

      Rispondendo sul sito di settore Gdoweek alla nostra inchiesta sulle aste online del pomodoro, il gruppo Eurospin ha sostenuto che “il mercato è cattivo” e che loro devono fare l’interesse del consumatore.

      L’interesse del consumatore deve essere anche quello di sostenere attivamente una filiera agroalimentare sana, senza sfruttamento. In cui i diversi attori – i braccianti, gli operatori agricoli, gli industriali trasformatori – riescano tutti a vivere dignitosamente del proprio lavoro. Perché quando noi compriamo sottocosto, c’è sempre qualcun altro che quel costo lo sta pagando.


      https://www.internazionale.it/opinione/stefano-liberti/2018/08/07/morte-braccianti-consumatori

      #sottocosto

    • #Eurospin, 20 milioni di bottiglie di passata di pomodoro comprate #sottocosto ! La denuncia di Terra! Onlus e Flai Cgil

      31,5 centesimi: è il prezzo che Eurospin avrebbe pagato per ciascuna delle 20 milioni di bottiglie di passata di pomodoro comprate durante un’asta online al doppio ribasso. Un prezzo insostenibile per la maggior parte dei produttori e trasformatori, diretta conseguenza di pratiche discutibili applicate da alcuni gruppi della grande distribuzione, che contribuiscono a mantenere i prezzi bassissimi e allo stesso tempo mandano in crisi il settore agricolo.

      A riaccendere i riflettori sul mondo delle aste è un comunicato congiunto dell’associazione Terra! Onlus e del sindacato Flai Cgil. Le aste al doppio ribasso della Grande distribuzione costringono i fornitori ad un gioco d’azzardo senza vincitori – dichiarano Fabio Ciconte, direttore di Terra! e Ivana Galli, Segretaria Generale della Flai Cgil – Si tratta di una pratica sleale che deve essere vietata per legge, perché impoverisce tutta la filiera agroalimentare”.

      Nelle aste al doppio ribasso il contratto di fornitura viene assegnato all’azienda che offre il prezzo più basso dopo due gare, e la base d’asta della seconda gara è il prezzo minore raggiunto durante la prima. Questo metodo spinge le aziende trasformatrici del pomodoro a vendere sottocosto il prodotto, quando ancora i pomodori non sono stati raccolti. Di fatto, sono i supermercati che, utilizzando lo strumento delle aste, stabiliscono i prezzi del pomodoro e altri generi alimentari quando ancora sono nei campi, minimizzando – o azzerando – i margini di agricoltori e trasformatori, e favorendo lo sfruttamento del lavoro nei campi e il caporalato.

      In Italia, quasi tre quarti degli acquisti alimentari sono effettuati in supermercati e discount, che schiacciano i guadagni dei fornitori con una serie di imposizioni, come sconti fuori contratto, promozioni e la richiesta di contributi per un migliore posizionamento sugli scaffali. Ma il più pericoloso resta il meccanismo dell’asta al doppio ribasso, che Terra! Onlus e Flai Cgil, insieme all’associazione daSud, avevano già denunciato con la campagna #ASTEnetevi, sottoscritta da Federdistribuzione, Conad e Mipaaf, ma non da Eurospin, che continua ad utilizzarlo. Ora si chiede il rispetto del patto sottoscritto e una definitiva messa fuori legge di queste gare.

      Eurospin ha risposto alle accuse dicendo che “In un mercato veloce, competitivo e fluido, che pianifica poco (al massimo a tre-cinque anni, e noi lo facciamo), le aste online possono anche mettere in difficoltà alcuni operatori, produttori o agricoltori, ma noi dobbiamo fare l’interesse del consumatore”. “Per questo usiamo questo approccio soprattutto per quei prodotti commodity che non hanno caratteri di innovazione e di distintività: perché c’è differenza tra i diversi pelati e noi ne teniamo conto. Le aste insomma funzionano per i prodotti base, non certo per articoli semilavorati con un loro valore aggiunto intrinseco e una qualità che i nostri clienti vogliono ritrovare sempre nei nostri punti di vendita. E questo ci porta a instaurare rapporti continuativi e duraturi con molti produttori partner. Sempre nel nome del consumatore”.

      Secondo gli autori della segnalazione si tratta di una risposta inaccettabile. Per questo hanno lanciato il tweetstorm ore 16 contro chi promuove “la spesa intelligente” sulla pelle degli agricoltori.


      https://ilfattoalimentare.it/eurospin-passata-pomodoro-sottocosto.html
      #tomates #coulis_de_tomates #enchères #prix #agriculture

      signalé par @wizo

    • Castrovillari, i caporali senza umanità: davano acqua inquinata alle “scimmie”

      “Domani mattina le scimmie le mandiamo lì. Restiamo 40 persone”. Sono alcune delle frasi intercettate dai finanzieri di Cosenza che questa mattina hanno eseguito sessanta misure cautelari nell’ambito dell’inchiesta denominata “Demetra”, che ha individuato due gruppi dediti allo sfruttamento illecito della manodopera e favoreggiamento dell’immigrazione clandestina nella piana di Sibari.

      I “caporali”, appartenenti al primo sodalizio criminale, composto da 47 persone, gestivano i rapporti con le aziende. I braccianti percepivano 80 centesimi a cassetta di agrumi raccolte e tendenzialmente a questo tipo di lavoro erano destinati pakistani o uomini provenienti dall’Africa. Per la raccolta delle fragole venivano impiegate, invece, donne dell’est Europa che ottenevano come compenso 28 euro al giorno, ai quali venivano detratti i costi di trasporto e vitto, nonostante le condizioni di lavoro fossero comunque disumane.

      “Ai neri mancano un paio di bottiglie di acqua. Nel canale, gliele riempiamo nel canale…”, dice una delle persone intercettate al telefono mentre chiede come dare da bere ai lavoratori impegnati nei campi. La soluzione viene subito trovata con qualche bottiglia vuota da riempire proprio nel canale. E l’acqua ovviamente tutto era tranne che potabile…

      http://www.iacchite.blog/castrovillari-i-caporali-senza-umanita-davano-acqua-inquinata-alle-scimmi

  • Diasporas : Mapping migration | The Economist

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/11/diasporas

    Where are the world’s biggest Chinese and Indian immigrant communities?

    MORE Chinese people live outside mainland China than French people live in France, with some to be found in almost every country. Some 22m ethnic Indians are scattered across every continent. Diasporas have been a part of the world for millennia. But today their size (if migrants were a nation, they would be the world’s fifth-largest) and the ease of staying in touch with those at home are making them matter much more. No other social networks offer the same global reach—and shrewd firms are taking notice. Our map highlights the world’s top 20 destinations for Chinese and Indian migrants.

    #inde #chine #migrations #diasporas