“If we don’t want to agree with some unscrupulous entrepreneur who believes the system offered by the gangmaster in proposing the availability of workers in real time to be functional for the economy of his company, it is perhaps the time for the Puglia Region to convene an institutional table as soon as possible with the social and employer partners to discuss the strengthening of the Employment Centres, with desks dedicated to the agricultural sector, and to prepare effective measures for the reception of seasonal workers and for targeted transport services”. The request was made in the aftermath of the latest investigation into gangmastering in Puglia, which led to two arrests in the Bari area, by the general secretary of Flai CGIL Puglia, Antonio Gagliardi.
“There is no doubt that the constant repression activities of the police forces are commendable and absolutely necessary in combating illicit intermediation and exploitation of agricultural labour. In this sense, the Caporalis operation of the provincial command of the Carabinieri and the NIL of Bari has highlighted, once again, a pernicious recruitment system that is far from being eradicated, but this cannot be the only way to fight those who turn the exploitation of labor into a real production model”, states Galiardi.
“It profits from the need for income of thousands of workers, especially foreigners – denounces Flai – and therefore easily blackmailed and exploited. The rules on labor exploitation are clear and available; politics must also play their part. There is a need to return to the real function of the Employment Centers and to the full application of civility laws such as 199 of 2016. We cannot think that only repressive activity can be decisive. There is an urgent need to reorganize the entire system on which the current agricultural labor market mechanism is based. Big revolutions are not necessary: use the rules we have available. Just as it is urgent, as the big harvest season approaches, to understand what solutions the Region intends to prepare for the reception of thousands of seasonal workers and related services. Otherwise we will end up fueling those informal places, the ghettos, where without the interventions envisaged by the Pnrr the living conditions are on the margins of human sustainability. In this regard, the Government has appointed the Prefect of Latina as commissioner responsible for following the implementation of the measures of the Pnrr: we ask that the Region be the spokesperson for a meeting that outlines the actions that are intended to be implemented in order not to lose precious funding, certified that half of the 200 million concerns Puglia”.
