3 ms·
> The subcontractors were Chinese-owned firms, prosecutors said. They said most of the workers were from China, with two living in the country illegally and ano
by alephnerd 2y ago
> The subcontractors were Chinese-owned firms, prosecutors said. They said most of the workers were from China, with two living in the country illegally and another seven working without required documentation
This is how almost all "Made in Italy" clothing products are produced.
Local Italian governments made SEZs where garment manufacturing would occur but with no oversight from labor inspectors.
You'd have a bunch of small shops do piece work that was outsourced by the brands, and these small shops were largely Wu dialect speakers due to the mass migration from Zhejiang back in the 90s.
It's been reported on for decades but no one cared [0][1][2].
Italy has a massive shadow economy powered by laborers trafficked from China (garments), India (dairy), Sri Lanka (garments), etc.
30 years ago it would have been Albanians, Yugoslavians, Romanians, or Poles but they'd rather go to Germany which has been developed much longer than Italy (Italy's HDI in the early-mid 1990s was comparable to Mexico, China, Thailand, and Serbia's HDI today)
[0] - https://inthesetimes.com/article/working-for-fashion-chinese-labor-in-italy https://inthesetimes.com/article/working-for-fashion-chinese...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-sweatshop-insight/insight-italys-chinese-garment-workshops-boom-as-workers-suffer-idUSBRE9BS04D20131229/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-sweatshop-insight/i...
[2] - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-workers-who-assemble-designer-bags-in-tuscany https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-wo...
- eddiewithzato 2y agoIdk I been to a dairy farm in central Italy, the margins aren’t that great for the farmer. He was mostly self employed working literal 10+ hour days. The supermarkets get most of the cut. He explained getting a worker trained and then paying them wasn’t feasible.
- alephnerd 2y agoYou can't justify leaving migrant workers to literally die due to workplace accidents and not taking them to get medical care [0][1] This has been an issue for decades in Italy. While Italy might be in Europe, it's rule of law and lack of support for those at the bottom rung of society is comparable to (not much) poorer Eastern European peers like Czechia. [0] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49687248 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49687248 [1] - https://www.meltingpot.org/2024/06/a-latina-satnam-singh-e-stato-ucciso-dal-sistema-di-sfruttamento/ https://www.meltingpot.org/2024/06/a-latina-satnam-singh-e-s...
- eddiewithzato 2y agoI’m saying there was workers beside the farmer in the dairy farm I visited
- alephnerd 2y agoYes. But being a small farm does not absolve you from following very basic employee safety laws that are mandated within the EU. The Dairy you went to might be better run, but the experiences tend to trend closer to the negative experiences I've mentioned. And this is something that has been reported on for over a decade [0][1][2][3][4], yet nothing has changed. [0] - https://theecologist.org/2013/jan/04/migrant-workers-face-severe-exploitation-italys-farm-sector https://theecologist.org/2013/jan/04/migrant-workers-face-se... [1] - https://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Article/2015/12/09/Food-industry-worker-abuse-warning https://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Article/2015/12/09/Food-in... [2] - https://www.ilo.org/it/media/94341/download https://www.ilo.org/it/media/94341/download [3] - https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/on-tuscanys-farms-women-migrant-laborers-face-exploitation/ https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/on-tuscanys-farms-women-mi... [4] - https://www.cgil.it/speciali/2024/la-precarieta-ha-troppe-facce/stagionali-e-agricoli-tra-irregolarita-e-sfruttamento-in-cerca-dei-diritti-hq9y6k1z https://www.cgil.it/speciali/2024/la-precarieta-ha-troppe-fa...