Milan – They are increasing exponentially investigations for labor exploitation opened by the Italian prosecutors’ offices, also in Lombardy, where the gap compared to the South is narrowing. This is what emerges from the “V Report on labor exploitation and the protection of its victims”, edited by the “L’Altro Diritti” research center and by the Flai Cgil Placido Rizzotto Observatory. A synergy created to analyze the results of the application of law 199 of 2016, the so-called standard “anti-corporate”also through monitoring the activities of 66 out of 140 Italian prosecutor’s offices. The investigations registered are 834 in total. The data indicate an exponential growth in cases of labor exploitation detected until 2020, which appears to stop starting from 2021.
“But the numbers for the last three years are in the process of settling, as the identification of criminal proceedings is affected by a variable period of time, due to the secrecy of the investigation and the reporting times of the Prosecutor’s Office”, it was specified. The investigations registered are 834 in total, of which 95 in Lombardy. Among the Lombard prosecutors’ offices, 26 were carried out by the Mantua prosecutor’s office, 16 by the Milan prosecutor’s office, 14 by Brescia.
Among those of 2023, it is noted for example the maxi operation of the Carabinieri of the Labor Protection Unit against digital gangmastering in food-delivery sector, in Brescia, during which the irregular position of a worker was discovered, through the illicit transfer of accounts scheme. In Mantua, following some checks, the Nil of Mantua, together with the ITL, identified a toy wrapping and packaging in which 11 illegal workers worked, all foreigners, in particularly unhealthy health and hygiene conditions (the owner of the company was reported for labor exploitation).
Then there was the case of the Monza Financial Police, which identified 21 workers employed without contracts, of various nationalities (Italian, Pakistani, Albanian, Peruvian and Ukrainian) including two irregular foreign workers in the area (Albanian and Peruvian), employed at renowned sushi restaurants, beauty salons, workshops and other commercial establishments, following which four business activities were suspended. “With the introduction of law 199 in 2016 there has been a paradigm shift on the part of investigators and inspection bodies in the repressive approach to exploitation which has spread widely throughout all economic sectors, starting from the primary in which abuses against workers are a real social emergency”, he explained Jean René Bilongo, president of the Placido Rizzotto Observatory.
