Working conditions of migrants in Italy

The last economic crisis caused a general worsening of conditions for many enterprises and to that effect also many workers. But not all workers suffered the same. This is one of the main points of the text 'Outsourced racism in Italy: discrimination at work and trade union responses in three sectors' by Rossana Cillo and Fabio Perocco which analyses the relationship between racial discrimination and the increasing spread of subcontracting and outsourcing labour. It is based on interviews originated from the European Union Research Project CRAW (Challenging Racism At Work), on a literature review and trade union policies relating to the subject.

Migrant workers in Italy already had worse working conditions than native Italian workers. But these conditions even got worse due to the economic crisis.

Many enterprises and also the welfare system tried to cut costs which often goes at the expense of working conditions of the workers hired by subcontractors. In many cases the proportion of migrant workers and Italian workers in the main enterprise and the subcontracting firms differ extremely. It is proven that the percentage of migrant workers in the subcontractor firms is much higher than in the main enterprise. Working conditions in subcontractor firms are often worse and even precarious – the deeper the level of subcontracting is the worse it gets. Migrant workers earn up to 10% less than Italian workers and are not paid production bonuses like the permanent workers. Many migrant workers only have temporary contracts. These employees often work at lower-skilled levels even if they are capable of performing higher-skilled jobs and there is only a little chance of promotion. Sometimes these differences occur even if permanent and temporary employees work side by side in the same factory. Many subcontractors also fail to respect workers' rights and safety precautions. There are cases of withholding of wages or unpaid overtime. Some subcontractors even ban their workers from joining a union. Trade unions also lost strength during the crisis and in many small- and medium-sized enterprises unions are hardly present.

It is important to say that many migrant workers accept these precarious working conditions not only because of financial reasons or absence of information on their rights but also because their residence permit is linked to an employment contract. Accordingly migrants often are in a really tricky situation and are afraid of losing their job and consequently their residence permit if they report exploitation.

Cillo, Rossana; Perocco, Fabio (2015): Outsourced racism in Italy: discrimination at work and trade union responses in three sectors. Transfer, Vol 21(1), 51-63.
in: http://trs.sagepub.com/content/21/1/51.full.pdf+html

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