The terrible death of Satnam Singh now outrages everyone, and even the government, even the Prime Minister, speaks of an “inhuman act that must be punished severely”. And who wouldn’t call for punishment in front of someone who first makes people work without a contract and then abandons the injured worker, with a broken femur and a torn arm, in front of his house, after having confiscated his and his wife’s phones for hours to prevent him from calling the rescue, and as a first statement states that the fault lies with the worker himself, who would have “committed something negligent”?
Inhumanity close to ferocity, certainly, in the face of which no one can afford to remain silent. But beyond the personal guilt, to be ascertained in all its gravity, it would truly be yet another act of contempt towards Mr Singh and his wife, to whom much more of our solidarity would go, not to look at the system within of which this unprecedented story takes place, and with respect to which the responsibilities are multiple, structured, and must be sought in Italian policies and laws, first and foremost. The ex post repression, the criminal law that intervenes in individual sensational cases is not at all sufficient to stop this massacre on land, just as it is absolutely not sufficient to stop those at sea.
This is yet another death at work, this is also true. As there are also on a daily basis among citizens of Italian nationality, in a country where the only security that is continually invoked is defensive and police security, and never that which is built with respect and the effective protection of rights. But only by adopting an intersectional perspective, which looks at the specific position of those who are workers, and moreover foreigners, and moreover without a regular residence permit, can we fully understand what are the elements that made the horror of which possible we find ourselves talking today, which is not causal, it is not the result of an isolated misfortune, but is the consequence of structural dynamics.
Let’s start by saying, if necessary, that entire sectors of the Italian labor market are based on the exploitation of people, in particular those with a history of migration. Construction, domestic and care work, catering and tourism in general, and, above all, agriculture. And it’s not all “corporalism”, that is, it’s not always situations in which illicit intermediation plays a fundamental role. It took until 2016, in Italy, to have a law that finally allowed exploitation to be prosecuted tout court, even when this intermediation does not exist and even when the victim is not a worker without a residence permit.
Because it is much easier, precisely, to look at your finger rather than at the moon. And pretending not to know that placing the blame on the “corporal” – instead of hitting the exploiter – is like, faced with a massacre of migrant people at sea – the last one, once again in the face of things in Calabria, it is only of a few days ago -, look only for those who are defined as “smugglers” instead of looking at the real human traffickers, who usually coincide or act in continuity with the authorities of the transit countries with which our governments make agreements, and who they enrich themselves thanks to the closure of every truly viable legal entry channel.
In the same way, let us have the courage to really change the production system, even if this means hitting entrepreneurial economies, inverting priorities, giving up easy consensus.
Does this country really want to combat labor exploitation? Start allowing people already present in Italy and who, regardless of the proclamations, will never be expelled, to have a regular position in the territory, changing the immigration law which from Bossi-Fini onwards has never worked and which the so-called “security” decrees of recent years have tightened. Our immigration regulatory system is designed to produce lawlessness and vulnerability to exploitation and abuse.
When potential employers come to the counter of the legal clinic that I coordinate at the University of Palermo and tell me that they want to hire a person they know, “who is good”, for whom they would be ready to guarantee accommodation and even a possible repatriation ticket , as well as a regular contract, but that person does not have a residence permit (perhaps because he lost it after years due to yet another decree that canceled the type of permit in question), we can only say, lowering our eyes faced with such an absurdity, which Italian law does not allow to become legal.
As in the case of Mr Singh and as in the case of hundreds of thousands of other people present in this country, made vulnerable to exploitation and abuse also because they are unable to obtain a regular residence permit, despite being essential workers, or perhaps precisely for this: everything is built to have a mass of servants and serves to be treated as subhuman.
And so, instead of simply invoking individual punishments, when terrible things happen that do not allow one to look the other way as is done in almost all cases, those who have the power to change things finally implement those political and legislative interventions – opening of legal entry channels, permanent regularizations, residence permits for job seeking – which alone can truly counteract a neo-slavery system that is poisoning Italy while also lowering the standards of work rights for everyone, regardless of nationality and by legal status.
Nobody will, of course. Because the only policies that are pursued are the unreasonable ones that speak to the dark side of people, to their fears and resentments, creating racism and separations that do not allow us to become aware of the fact that these, like other battles, are either won together or they are lost for everyone.
