The Struggle of Farm Workers in Italy

About the book

The agricultural produce that ends up on our table from supermarket shelves and market stalls does not tell the story of the lives of the countless men and women who toil in the fields and greenhouses of Italy in conditions and at a pace that are often reminiscent of modern slavery.

In this production chain, thousands of “invisible” workers, many of them migrants, are isolated by Italian law and easily blackmailed due to the indifference of the European Union and its inability to agree on harmonisation processes for the effective protection of workers.

Legal uncertainty, geographical and social exclusion and low wages make them easy prey to exploit in an economic system that requires increasingly cheap, replaceable and blackmailable labour.

This is the reality of life for farm workers, who form part of an extensive pool of impoverished and precarious workers in Italy, whose everyday lives are marked by exploitation and appalling living conditions.

About the author

Kone Brah Hema is a trade-union activist and intercultural mediator at a reception centre for asylum seekers in Turin. He also works for the Italian branch of the International Coalition of Undocumented Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers (CISPM) and campaigns for social equality and social justice for all citizens and migrants in Italy.