Gangmastering in the fields of Viterbo, the exploited workers raise their heads and ask for what they are entitled to. Months after the closure of the maxi investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office into the exploitation of labor in the countryside of the capital, over 150 workers have obtained financial compensation. A result achieved thanks to the mediation of Uil, which started a class action after the first request for help from some exploited workers.
On 25 November 2022, the agricultural entrepreneur Danilo Camilli was subjected to a real precautionary measure for labor exploitation. The investigating judge ordered the preventive seizure and confiscation of 540 thousand euros and the judicial control of the Castel d’Asso company. According to the accusation, between 2017 and 2022 the agricultural entrepreneur Camilli hired numerous foreign citizens from Africa and Bangladesh, subjecting them to exploitative conditions, taking advantage of their state of need. According to what was reconstructed by the investigators, coordinated by the Prosecutor’s Office, the workers employed in working the fields were subjected to working conditions characterized by very long work shifts (from dawn to dusk, even up to thirteen hours a day), by exposure to bad weather and sometimes, by the failure to take advantage of the weekly rest day, paid holidays and sick leave and by the payment of remuneration clearly different from the dictates of the national and provincial contracts, while the wages were, in part, paid by bank transfer and in part, “in black”. During the investigation phase, the Carabinieri collected the testimony of 140 employees, most of them workers from very poor countries who arrived in Italy with the need to find a job. The 140 workers would have recounted all the difficulties and threats they were subjected to if by chance they tried to ask for better working conditions.
After a year of intense investigations, the Prosecutor’s Office has asked for the entrepreneur to be sent to trial and tomorrow the preliminary hearing will begin before the investigating judge Savina Poli.
After starting a class action against the boss, the workers managed to obtain, with the mediation of Uil, an economic agreement which provides on the one hand that the entrepreneur undertakes to bridge the salary differences between what was actually received and what would actually be due. And on the other, the commitment not to become a civil party in the ongoing criminal proceedings.
«When it started I didn’t realize that everything was turning into a class action – says the trade unionist of the Uil of Viterbo Antonio Biagioni -, it was born by chance and immediately grew like wildfire. We are not interested in making the company fail, but in giving the workers fair compensation. So I started a negotiation with the company consultant and after several meetings we reached an agreement, which concerns 150 people. For others we are about to close. So many more workers than those in the investigation. The agreement is economic – concludes the trade unionist – to compensate for what was not received. The workers who recover their wages will not take action against the entrepreneur.”
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