ROMA – Ninety-eight days ago – on June 17 – in Cisterna di Latina, Satnam Singh, 31, bled to death with his arm cut off by a farm machine. He worked illegally for the farm of Antonello Lovato, who is still in prison for wilful homicide. The mutilated body was abandoned by the entrepreneur in front of Satnam’s house, in Ciserna di Latina, 6-7 km from the site of the accident. The severed arm was wrapped in a rag and placed in a fruit crate. Satnsam died two days later at the San Camillo hospital in Rome.
“I told him but he did his own thing.” What struck us in the hours following all this was the sentence pronounced by the owner of the farm: “I told him not to stand too close to that machine, but he wanted to do his own thing. We are sorry because a boy died on the job. It was a carelessness that cost everyone dearly”.
The role of Bossi Fini in all this. Satnam was born in Kapurthala, in the state of Punjab, India. He entered Italy in 2016 regularly with the “flow decree”, one of the most opaque and unjust inventions contained in the Bossi-Fini law. A law that, not surprisingly, is today in the crosshairs of a very broad front that would like its abolition – here to stop – especially because it considers as regular only the entries of migrants accompanied by an employment contract with a company.
The fate of Satnam. This is how Satnam’s destiny crossed paths with that of the gangmaster system ready to be introduced into the world of work through the door of legality, after having landed in Europe by air, therefore with less complicated and risky access procedures,
Where’s the trick. But here comes the trick. The employer identified by the “caporale” did not actually hire the Indian laborer, thus forcing him, like many others, to join the army of illegal workers who, once without a contract, automatically become irregular and subject to blackmail. “This is one of the intentionally perfidious effects, conceived by those who wrote the Bossi-Fini law – underlines Marco Omizzolo, sociologist Eurispes and a professor at Sapienza – a devious and perverse set of rules to, in fact, legalise and protect the practice of exploiting people, paid two euros for every hour of work and for 12 hours a day”.
They seem like malfunctions of the law, but in reality they are political choices. “Moreover – continues the sociologist, author of “For the sake of justice” (Ed. People) – the current government corroborates this idea of illegal exploitation: just remember one of the sentences that I think are salient in the inaugural speech given by Giorgia Meloni to the Chambers: ‘We will not disturb those who produce…’ a nice reassuring wink for all entrepreneurs, including those who exploit people. The Prime Minister made it clear, in short, which side the State is on, in her opinion. Therefore – added Omizzolo – what are sometimes defined as ‘dysfunctions’ produced by the law, are in reality a political strategy”.
But the workplace massacres continue. In the meantime, workplace deaths, both of people with regular contracts and those exploited and subject to blackmail, are increasing. Up until May 31, reports of accidents at work were 251,132, with a more significant increase for accidents that occurred on the way to work. The reports that resulted in death were 369. It should also be considered that – according to other studies – about 65% of workplace deaths involve immigrants”.
The judicial route is not enough, it is the laws that are wrong. “Exploitation – the sociologist addedEurispes – it cannot be solved only through criminal law. Controls are not enough. The central problem lies in the wrong rules contained in the Bossi Fini. And I will give another example: the other ambiguous element of the law concerns the residence permit that can be renewed only if there is continuity of work and if pay slips for a total of 9 thousand euros per year are shown.
A phenomenon that affects Italy from North to South. A constraint that excludes a huge number of people who – also for this reason – end up swelling the front of semi-slave-like illegal work. After Stnam’s death, other laborers lost their lives in Calabria, Puglia, Lombardy, where in one company alone over 1,000 people were found working illegally and forced to live in accommodations that were nothing short of indecent.
Behind it is a turnover of 25.4 billion. “The turnover of the agromafias moves 25.4 billion euros – Marco Omizzolo said again – but the phenomenon, I repeat, should not be addressed only through the union or judicial channels. It is the workers’ mobilizations, their collective awareness that change things, inducing politics to change the laws, above all.
Two state laws in conflict with each other. It has already happened: Italy with law 199 of 2016, designed to combat the phenomena of undeclared work, exploitation in agriculture and for the realignment of wages in the agricultural sector, proposes a regulatory framework considered the most advanced in Europe. The problem – concludes Omizzolo – is that in the Italian jurisdiction this law still coexists but in open conflict with the Bossi-Fini law”.
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– 2024-09-24 04:43:55
