Apulian agricultural companies do not seem to like the Quality Agricultural Work Network against labor exploitation and gangmastering.
Faced with a low number of signups, the update to May 2024 even records a setback, “a sign that some companies that had submitted an application were not as virtuous as they would have self-certified” highlight from Flai Cgil.
In fact, only agricultural businesses that stand out for their compliance with labor standards, social legislation, income taxes and added value are those that – on paper – should join the Quality Agricultural Work Network, introduced by law 116 of 2014 and subsequently amended by 199 of 2016, the symbolic law of the fight against gangmastering and exploitation.
This is a network established at the INPS to identify virtuous agricultural companies in the area, considering that membership means that registered companies are not primarily subject to the checks carried out by the supervisory bodies. A sort of ‘white list’ which in Puglia went from 1,144 companies admitted in 2021 to 1,404 registered in September 2023.
Last month’s monitoring instead recorded a lower figure of 1,282 companies. At a territorial level, Bari has 51% of registered businesses, 39% of Foggiano, lower shares in the other provinces. “But of the companies admitted to the Network, only 300 are structured with employed agricultural workers, the others are family-run”, explains the general secretary of the Flai CGIL of Puglia, Antonio Gagliardi. “Insignificant data considering that our region has around 77 thousand active companies, almost 30 thousand of which resort to seasonal hiring”.
In commenting on the data of the National Labor Inspectorate, which recorded 53% of non-compliant companies, but above all the low incidence of controls which leads a company to be subject to inspection once every 33 years, the Flai Cgil pointed out that it is incomprehensible that the issue of wage dumping, which affects the many companies that operate in compliance with the rules, is not also a priority for employers’ associations. “We should push everyone to join the Quality Agricultural Work Network, but instead the reality is as described.”
Meanwhile, the season of large harvests is approaching and Gagliardi highlights other negative aspects:
“We denounce the delay with which the institutions are preparing measures to welcome in a dignified way the thousands of seasonal workers arriving in Puglia, and at the same time it is not possible to deal with the emergency conditions that workers experience in informal settlements, without water drinking water, health care services, often obtained only after our battles and with the support of voluntary associations. Just as it has been discovered that the flow decrees have regulatory gaps and do not comply with the regulatory dictate. Only hypocrisy can cause amazement compared to a law like the Bossi-Fini law which fuels irregular circuits for men and women who become a reserve army for unscrupulous corporals and entrepreneurs, to be squeezed and exploited without any respect for human dignity. We would like to discuss this at the tables of the Network quality agricultural work, to complete law 199, awaiting a response from the Region to which we have asked for an urgent meeting”.
