The Rosarno Revolt 221 Immigration Control, the Increase in Workplace Inspections Has Not Resulted in Significant Penalties for Non-Compliant Employers

Th e Ro s a r n o Re v o l t : To w a r d Political Mobilization f o r Imm i g r a n t s ?

Camilla Devitt

“Rosarno: Immigrant revolt, hundreds of cars damaged” was the alarming headline in La Repubblica on 7 January 2010. An immigrant protest and ensuing episodes of violence in the small town of Rosarno in Calabria in southern Italy were followed with intense interest by the national and international media and prompted a heated public debate in Italy. Upcoming regional elections and shared political responsibility for immigration resulted in politicians blaming their opponents for the disorder. Minister of the Interior Roberto Maroni’s immediate response was to maintain that the events were the result of too much tolerance toward undocumented immigrants. Following the discovery that the majority of migrants involved were legally resident in Italy, the government subsequently emphasized the role of inadequate labor market controls and organized crime. Declarations regarding the necessity to better implement the existing immigration control legislation and the signing of further agreements with sub-Saharan African migrant-sending states in February 2010 suggest continuity in the Italian approach to immigration control, which has focused on border control and international cooperation for the past decade. Furthermore, while highly publicized initiatives that were aimed at calling attention to illegal work (particularly seasonal farm labor) initially appeared to constitute a new approach to

Notes for this chapter begin on page 236. The Rosarno Revolt 221 immigration control, the increase in workplace inspections has not resulted in significant penalties for non-compliant employers. The disorders in Rosarno and those in Milan a month later appear to have convinced the government of the need to generate more public interest in the issues of immigrant reception and integration. However, the role of the state in providing for and supporting migrant workers in their search for decent accommodations remains unclear. Lastly, it is notable that the structural and economic origins of the Rosarno conflict—the two-fold crisis in the agricultural sector—was barely touched upon in media reports or the political debate. This chapter focuses on the political responses to the Rosarno crisis. In the first section, I analyze the political parties’ interpretations of the events and the impact of Rosarno on immigration and labor market policy. The second section is concerned with the societal debate and initiatives stimulated by the crisis, in particular, the response of the trade unions and the Church and the immigrant strike of 1 March 2010. In the third section, I draw attention to the structural and economic root causes of the Rosarno crisis, while the next section inves- tigates the extent to which Rosarno epitomizes the working and living conditions of seasonal labor migrants in Italy. The conclusion suggests that Rosarno can be read as a sign that Italy is entering a new phase in its immigration history, one in which an increasingly significant and legally resident immigrant population represents a new political voice. It also discusses how governments might go about preventing future social tensions along the lines of Rosarno.

Rosarno and the Political Responses

Between 7 and 12 January 2010, the national and international media recounted the Rosarno events in minute detail. On 7 January, hundreds of mainly sub-Saharan African migrants, who were working in the Calabrian Piana di Gioia Tauro area during the annual fruit harvest, protested violently in response to a drive-by shooting in which two migrants had been injured by locals. Using steel bars and stones, the migrants damaged rubbish bins and cars and clashed with police in and around the town of Rosarno. The next morning, about 700 migrants took part in a peaceful demonstration in front of the town hall, protesting against harassment. Violent episodes ensued, espe- cially attacks perpetrated by locals on isolated migrants. At the end of the disturbances, 21 migrants and 14 locals had received medical attention in the local hospital. This crisis was the explosive culmina- tion of 20 years of sporadic violence directed toward migrant workers. 222 Camilla Devitt

Prior to this incident, in December 2008, a peaceful migrant demonstration, which followed a similar attack on two migrants, attracted comparatively little media interest. The first step of Maroni, a member of the Northern League (LN) party, the main anti-immigration force in Italian politics, was the cre- ation of a task force on 8 January in the prefecture of Reggio Calabria— the region’s capital—charged with identifying solutions to overcoming tensions and violence in Rosarno. The task force, led by the director of immigration policy at the Ministry of the Interior, the director-general of inspection services at the Ministry of Labor, and the director-general of health services of the province of Reggio Calabria, immediately decided to evacuate a first group of migrants from the approximately 1,200 who were living in the area, transferring them to the reception center of Crotone. The next morning, the task force moved to the town of Rosarno, where it met with humanitarian and health organizations, as well as cultural mediators, in order to facilitate the fastest possible evacuation of the migrants. During that day, 748 people were relocated to centers in Crotone and Bari. Another 330 migrants with residence permits left by their own means. Significantly, of the 748 migrants evacuated, 465 turned out to have regular residence permits and were released. The following morning, the demolition of La Rognetta, one of the abandoned buildings that had housed hundreds of seasonal migrants in unsanitary conditions in the Piana di Gioia Tauro area, commenced. The violent nature of the migrant protest, the media’s rather sen- sationalist presentation of “inter-racial” conflict, and, above all, the political context of the Rosarno crisis ensured that it would not be easily swept under the carpet as its predecessor had been in 2008. Regional elections were to take place in late March, and while a center-right coali- tion was in office in Rome and the town of Rosarno was under the direct control of the Ministry of the Interior,1 the region of Calabria and the province of Reggio Calabria were governed by left-wing presidents. The central government is responsible for managing labor migrant entries and contrasting undocumented immigration, whereas the regions and local governments are charged with the reception and social integration of migrants, financed annually by the national fund for social policies. Shared political responsibility for immigration resulted in a debate that consisted in laying the blame for the crisis on one’s political opponent. Maroni’s first interpretation of the unrest in Rosarno was that it was the result of too much tolerance toward undocumented migrants in Italy, implicitly assigning responsibility for the disorder at the feet of the political left: “In Rosarno, there is a difficult situation like in other parts of the country, because undocumented immigration has been The Rosarno Revolt 223 tolerated over the years without an effective response and has fed into criminal activity and generated social degradation.”2 On the basis of this rationale, members of the Berlusconi government emphasized the need to enforce the existing immigration control legislation. It was argued that there was no necessity for new laws or amendments as the existing legislation—most recently amended by the center-right— already required regular employment contracts and adequate housing for foreign workers. In the Senate on 12 January and in the Chamber of Deputies on the next day, Maroni defended himself and his government from charges of mismanagement. He maintained that the most tangible intervention in response to the migrant protest of December 2008 had come from the Ministry of the Interior: an initial contribution of 200,000 euros had been issued to the Rosarno town council in order to rent sanitary structures in April 2009. Indeed, the regional government in Calabria was blamed by members of the Berlusconi government for having ignored the situation of social degradation in Rosarno for years. In response to the assertion of the president of Calabria, Agazio Loiero, that the state had not been present in Rosarno, Maroni responded that the regions had exclusive competency for health and could have closed down Rosarno’s “bidonville.” Along similar lines, Jole Santelli of the Liberal Democrats (LD) party maintained: “It’s not possible … [that] a governor of Calabria goes on television saying that the government is absent, that the state is not there, crying for help from elsewhere! … The region has to guarantee migrants refuge and reception and equal opportunities in accessing housing and work.”3 An LN senator, Federico Bricolo, also laid the blame for the crisis on the local trade unions and magistracy. To the applause of other LN senators, Bricolo maintained that “in the North, in Padania, our trade unions and our local public officials would never have tolerated situations like this!”4 The political opposition, including the center-left Democratic Party (PD), the Union of the Center (UdC), and Italy of Values (IdV), were united in criticizing the Berlusconi government’s management of labor immigration and the Rosarno crisis. It was emphasized that the town had been governed by a prefect of the Ministry of the Interior since 2008 and that the ministry and other central state organs had reneged on their duty to ensure respect for the law in the Rosarno area. As the PD’s spokesperson for immigration, Livia Turco, asserted in the Chamber of Deputies on 13 January: “What are the labor inspectorate, the labor bureau … if not offices of the Labor Ministry? What have the prefects and the police been doing? They should be investigating the black market and illegality, not only when there is an emergency, but every day.” 224 Camilla Devitt

The secretary of the PD, Pierluigi Bersani, maintained that Maroni was predictably using the scapegoat of illegal immigration and asserted that the role of organized crime—in particular, the ’Ndrangheta—had been underemphasized, as had the issues of exploitation, xenophobia, and racism. Opposition parties were also critical of the center-right’s lack of attention to the integration of migrants, accusing the Berlusconi government of passing the buck to local governments without providing sufficient financial support. Furthermore, what the Berlusconi government described as a “voluntary transfer” of migrants from the Rosarno area was viewed by the opposition as an unacceptable deportation of a large group of mainly regular migrant workers. Although the Italian system for managing the entry of non-EU workers has not been the subject of serious public debate or reform over the past decade, the issue of undocumented immigration has been at the center of immigration policy-making. In fact, while the Rosarno crisis had very little to do with the illegal entry of non-EU workers, it was referred to by the Berlusconi government as further evidence for the need to strengthen the existing system of international cooperation in an effort to curb undocumented immigration. Since 1990, the Italian approach to curbing undocumented entries has principally developed in the area of border control. Internal controls, such as random ID checks and workplace inspections, have been relatively sidelined, and only about 20–22 percent of those identified as irregular are currently deported. The prioritization of border control is largely explained by its symbolic value, by commitments under the Schengen Treaty concerning border-free travel in the EU, and by the political cost of carrying out workplace inspections. The main aspects of the border control system originated in Law No. 39/1990 (the Mar- telli law) and Law No. 40/1998 (the Turco-Napolitano law) on immigration. They include sanctions for smuggling migrants, the detention of undocumented migrants in order to facilitate their deportation, and the signing of bilateral agreements with countries from which significant numbers of undocumented migrants originate. These bilateral agreements generally provide sending countries with privileged quotas for foreign workers in exchange for a facilitated readmission of expelled nationals, and 28 agreements have been signed. Center-right governments have retained the basic apparatus for keeping track of undocumented immigration while increasing the severity and scope of disincentives to engage in or facilitate such movement. Border control policy has succeeded in significantly reducing landings of clandestine migrants on southern Italian shores. However, migrants arriving without papers by sea are estimated to be only 4–12 percent of the total population of undocumented migrants in Italy.5 The Rosarno Revolt 225

Following the discovery that the majority of migrants living in the Rosarno area were legally resident in Italy, Maroni continued to argue that Rosarno illustrated the negative consequences of undocumented immigration.6 One month after the Rosarno crisis, on 8 February, Maroni, accompanied by the head of police, met with counterparts in Ghana. Maroni proposed a bilateral agreement for collaboration on security and the adhesion of Ghana to the UN Convention on Trans- national Organized Crime, signed by UN member states in Palermo on December 2000. The agreement provides for police cooperation in the identification and deportation of undocumented migrants. Maroni declared that the agreement with Ghana and that signed with the Niger government on the following day were the first in Europe, which confirmed Italy’s leadership role in curbing undocumented immigration. He underlined the importance of cooperation with Ghana in view of the fact that two of the six Africans killed in Castelvolturno7 in October 2008 and 40 of the migrants involved in the Rosarno crisis in January were Ghanian nationals.8 Nevertheless, by 12 January the Berlusconi government’s interpretation of the Rosarno conflict had widened beyond the issue of undocumented immigration to encompass the problems of illegal work and organized crime. During Maroni’s informative speech on the events in Rosarno in the Senate on that day, he noted that most of the migrants evacuated from Rosarno had a regular residence permit but did not have a regular work contract. He asserted that it was consequently necessary to intensify workplace inspections in southern agriculture in order to control illegal practices. In fact, he maintained that “this is our action plan to efficiently curb illegal immigration, the black market, and every form of criminal activity in our country.”9 Maroni had initially contended that attributing the crisis to organized crime allowed many people to “wash their hands” of the problem and leave it to the Ministry of the Interior to deal with. However, his speech in the Senate on 12 January was made following the arrest and confis- cation of property of 17 people affiliated with the Bellocco clan of the ’Ndrangheta in Rosarno. Maroni declared that these arrests were “proof that the state is in Calabria and that it will continue to be there and will not let up on the ’Ndrangheta.”10 On 28 January, the same day on which the Council of Ministers met in the prefecture of Reggio Calabria to present the “Extraordinary Plan against Mafias,” drawn up by Maroni and Minister of Justice Angelino Alfano, the “Extraordinary Plan for Eliminating the Black Market in Construction and Agriculture” was unveiled by Minister of Labor Mau- rizio Sacconi. This plan was stated to stem from the ministerial direc- tive of 18 September 2008 that aimed to focus workplace inspections 226 Camilla Devitt

on the most serious areas of non-compliance, based on the rationale that there were insufficient resources for an economy-wide approach. The document setting out the plan maintained that “on the basis of this orientation and in light of recent events in the province of Reggio Calabria (Rosarno)—where the use of irregular labor by agricultural firms had a strong repercussion on the social sphere—it is opportune to initiate an extraordinary plan of inspections in the territories of the South most sensitive to the problem of irregular work (Calabria, Campania, Puglia and Sicily).”11 The inspections would focus on the agriculture and construction sectors, due to the significance of irregular work and the links with organized crime in those territories. With regard to agriculture, the document asserted that vouchers for occasional work,12 which had been successfully introduced in northern agriculture in 2008, had not even been experimented with in the South. It was also emphasized that quotas for seasonal workers had not been fully utilized in the South and that, therefore, “having recourse to undocumented migrants and informal employment does not seem to be justified by the lack of ‘legal alternatives’ on the contractual front (vouchers) or as regards the availability of labor (seasonal quotas not used up).”13 The inspection of 10,000 farms— about twice the number inspected in 2009—was to focus in particular on activities that made intensive use of seasonal farm labor. In total, 550 people were to be involved in the inspections at an estimated cost of 1,900,000 euros. The social partners and their bilateral institu- tions were expected to collaborate by promoting good practices among firms, monitoring working practices, and supplying the inspectorate with information regarding areas of non-compliance. Sacconi’s plan initially appears to represent a new approach to immigration control—an attempt to shape migrant inflows by means of labor market policy.14 It also seems to constitute a change in the center-right approach to controlling the informal economy, which, until then, had focused on facilitating regular economic activities— through the flexibilization of employment contracts—rather than rein- forcing labor market controls and punishing employers.15 However, the inspections carried out have not resulted in significant penalties for non-compliant employers. Between March and August 2010, 3,770 firms were inspected in the agricultural sector, and 67 percent of employment was found to be undeclared. Although 94 firms were to be suspended, 56 of these orders were subsequently revoked.16 The inadequacy of the current reception and integration system, highlighted by both the Berlusconi government and the opposition in the wake of Rosarno, became even more patently clear with the outbreak of inter-ethnic violence among groups of migrants in the The Rosarno Revolt 227 area of Via Padova in Milan in mid-February.17 Maroni declared that it was clear that ethnic concentrations should be avoided and that an Italian approach to integration needed to be invented, one based on collaboration between local governments and universities.18 The importance of public support for integration, particularly in the midst of the economic crisis, was a key point in the Senate’s discussion on 2 March 2010 of the Resolution of the Third Committee on the European Commission’s 2008 Communication titled “Strengthening the Global Approach to Migration.” For example, Speaker Giuseppe Pisanu maintained: “We cannot underestimate the warning signs coming from Rosarno and Via Padova. With the downturn and an increase in social disadvantage, we can expect the worst … they can form critical mass and unleash protests and violence … we need to develop active integration policies.”19 On 10 June, the Council of Ministers approved a “Plan for Integra- tion in Safety: Identity and Reunion.” Among other priorities, this plan highlights the importance of controlling informal work, as well as ensuring that immigrants have decent accommodations. Regarding the latter, it is asserted that employers and employer associations are primarily responsible for helping foreign workers find suitable accommodations and that their efforts need to be monitored. It is notable that the role of the regions and local governments is not specified,20 despite the fact that the latter are responsible for providing accommodations for regular migrants who are temporarily unable to support themselves, as well as for helping them gain access to social/collec- tive or private housing.21 In Rosarno, the local authorities are indeed committed to avoiding a reconcentration of migrant workers. The Ministry of the Interior is financing the building of a training center for migrants, yet the state has not provided new accommodations for seasonal migrant workers, despite the expected arrival of at least 500 migrants for the 2010–2011 harvest. The events of January 2010 in Rosarno appear to have had more of an impact on the national political debate than on the local one. In the regional elections of March 2010 in Calabria, the LD candidate, Giuseppe Scopelliti, won a landslide victory over the PD’s Loiero, who had been president of the region since 2005. This appears to reflect the success of the center-right in assigning responsibility for the Rosarno crisis to the center-left opposition; however, as is most often the case in Italian elections, immigration was hardly discussed during the election campaign. While Loiero highlighted positive initiatives carried out under his leadership, such as the integration experiences of three Calabrian towns, immigration was absent from Scopelliti’s electoral program. 228 Camilla Devitt

The Societal Debate and Initiatives

The strongly defensive and accusatory tones of the societal debate reflected its political counterpart. For example, Guglielmo Epifani, the secretary of CGIL, the largest trade union in Italy, asserted that there were many other places that were ready to explode like Rosarno and that the trade unions, far from being at fault, had been pointing to these problems for a decade. As Epifani put it: “The trade union is not the problem. The problem is those who for a long time have closed their eyes and pretended not to see.”22 He also maintained that the Berlusconi government’s hostile approach to immigration and indifference to integration had forced migrants to live in inhumane conditions. There was some notable disagreement within the Church regarding the role of racism. In an article in the papal daily L’Osservatore Romano, published on 11 January 2010 and entitled “The Italians and Racism: Black Tammurriata,” it was argued that there is a significant problem of racism in the country: “A trip on the train, a walk in the park, or a football game do not leave any doubt about this.”23 How- ever, the Calabrian Assembly of Bishops approved a document on 8 February that stated that what had happened in Rosarno was not due to racism among its inhabitants but could largely be accounted for by the modern slavery that local criminals attempt to impose on migrant workers.24 In what could be considered its most tangible result in terms of social initiatives, Rosarno led to the organization of an immigrant strike on 1 March 2010, the first such initiative in Italy. Inspired by the French movement “La journée sans immigrés: 24 h sans nous” (A Day without Immigrants: 24 Hours without Us), the online movement proposed a general strike for all immigrants living in Italy. While the first post of the Primomarzo movement dates to 9 October 2009, the numbers multiplied quickly after Rosarno. The initiative received support from many human rights groups and migrant associations. Tens of thousands of people participated in the demonstrations in more than 60 town and city squares in Italy. While the basic idea was to show the government what it would be like not to have migrant workers for 24 hours, the strike also presented a platform for voicing criticism of the Berlusconi government’s treatment of undocumented immigrants, the diffusion of a racist culture, and the lack of efficient immigration and integration policies. The demonstration in Rome was opened by a delegation of migrants from Rosarno who held a ban- ner that read “Too much intolerance, no rights.” While members of the opposition parties were present at the demonstration in Rome and the LD maintained that the strike was a valuable opportunity for The Rosarno Revolt 229 reflection, the LN organized a counter-demonstration in Milan and claimed that the strike was a failure, as the economy did not grind to a halt on 1 March.25 Two months later, on Labor Day, the three largest trade unions held a demonstration in Rosarno, during which Epifani declared that Rosarno had become “the symbol of many things, from problems of work to those of integration, workers’ rights, organized crime, and labor exploitation.”26 The trade unions called on the government to present an “Extraordinary Plan for Work” with the aim of creating new quality jobs in a period of rising unemployment. It is estimated that 30,000 people attended the rally, with the conspicuous absence of local people, who felt that they had been unjustly painted in the public debate as racist, intolerant, and criminal.

The Structural and Economic Root Causes of the Rosarno Crisis

The Rosarno conflict is an event of significant consequences. While it was mainly accounted for with popularly accessible concepts of illegal immigration, Mafia activity, and racism, as well as illegal work and the inefficient management of labor immigration, most commenta- tors inexplicably sidestepped the root cause of the events of January 2010—the long-standing crisis in the citrus fruit industry in the Mezzo- giorno and the international economic downturn beginning in 2008. Indeed, just a month before the unrest in Rosarno, on 11 Decem- ber 2009, the Italian Farmers’ Confederation had declared that the citrus industry was no longer sustainable due to an inundation of Spanish oranges and Brazilian orange juice.27 Despite similar levels elsewhere of productive fragmentation and costs of production, as well as encroaching international competition, unlike its Spanish counterpart, the Italian citrus fruit sector—90 percent of which is based in Sicily and Calabria—has long been in crisis. Two key factors that explain this are (1) the larger number of intermediaries between producers and the market in Italy and (2) the fact that Italian farmers have used public funds to increase the level of production rather than its quality. In fact, in the main, the Italian sector has grown over the past four decades due to protectionism and subsidization rather than market competitiveness.28 The local economy in Rosarno, a town of 14,000 inhabitants, is based on small farm holdings, averaging little more than a hectare (about 2.5 acres) that produce primarily citrus fruit and olives. From the early 1990s up to the end of 2008, European Common Agricultural 230 Camilla Devitt

Policy (CAP) subsidies were based on the quantity of citrus fruit pro- duced. Moreover, small producers’ cooperatives, which managed the commercialization of the produce and EU subsidies, declared a fraud- ulently high level of production in order to receive a higher level of subsidization. For over a decade, the real and declared level of production increased continuously, and farm owners in Rosarno received about 8,000 euros per hectare annually. While these farmers officially employed about 3,000 local laborers—who, after claiming to have worked for 51 days (or 5 days in the case of a natural disaster), had the right to unemployment benefits for the rest of the year—many of these laborers were receiving unemployment benefits without engaging in agricultural work. Those actually employed in harvesting the fruit were migrant workers, who worked for less than half the local pay. In 2003, a CAP reform “decoupled” direct aid to farmers, tying payments to the number of hectares rather than the level of production of a specific product. While some member states chose to maintain some “coupled” (i.e., production-linked) payments, these remaining payments (with some exceptions) were decoupled in 2008. Since then, instead of receiving 8,000 euros per hectare, Rosarno’s farmers receive less than 1,500 euros. This change led to an immediate contraction in the number of agricultural producers and firms involved in food production and commercialization. Subsequently, in 2009, the global economic downturn led to a massive fall in the price of oranges on the international market. At the same time, a larger- than-usual number of migrant workers, many of whom had lost their jobs in factories in the Center-North and were still legally resident in Italy, arrived for the harvest. Thus, the simultaneous reduction in European subsidies, fall in food prices, and increase in the number of legally resident migrant workers created the conditions for social conflict in January 2010.29 As noted above, sporadic attacks on migrants in the Piana di Gioia Tauro area had been perpetrated by locals over the past 20 years. In fact, assaults on migrants in Italy have been documented as far back as the early 1970s in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily. Universal factors, such as socio-economic disadvantage, racism, and criminal scaremon- gering, have their place in explanations for such acts of aggression. However, what distinguishes the events of January 2010 in Rosarno was the social conflict between the migrants and locals that followed. The economic crisis largely accounts for local intolerance toward a large group of underemployed migrants, while the number and legal status of the migrants explains to an extent the force of their response to the attacks. Regarding the latter, while legal status is not always a precondition for protest, as exemplified by various migrant uprisings The Rosarno Revolt 231 in detention centers across Italy and the recent protest in Brescia (see below), the possibility of being deported if identified as undocumented is a clear disincentive. Nevertheless, a deterrent remains for those with residency for employment purposes: since such residency is tied to an employment contract, the loss of a job following a protest could eventually result in the loss of legal residency.

How Many Rosarnos?

At the beginning of 2010, foreigners accounted for 7.6 percent of the total labor force. Over 70 percent of migrant workers are registered as manual laborers, and the main sectors employing resident migrant workers are industry, construction, and services. Agriculture employs only 3.9 percent of resident migrant workers. Northern Italy has become the main destination for labor migrants: the region of Calabria in the South is home to less than 3 percent of the country’s resident immigrants, compared to just under 10 percent in Emilia-Romagna.30 As the government maintained in the wake of the Rosarno crisis, quotas for seasonal work permits were not fully utilized in the South, nor were those for the northern regions. In 2009, while 34,668 permissions to request visas for seasonal work were issued, only 11,719 seasonal work permits were effectively requested across Italy.31 In fact, it appears that the seasonal work permit system is of negligible use (in terms of sourcing labor) to employers who have a supply of readily available migrant workers to hire, including migrants who enter the country with tourist visas, migrants with resident permits for non-seasonal employment or other purposes, students, and undocumented migrants. Indeed, most labor immigrants in Italy have entered the country without permission or without permission to work there. Irregular migrants have traditionally obtained residence permits as a result of one of the regular amnesties granted by Italian governments or within the system of annual quotas for the entry of non-EU workers. Since 2006, due to growing opposition in the EU to mass regularization programs, these quotas are conceived as amnesties for irregular migrants already present in the state. However, since 2006 there has been an increase in both the number of rejected applications for residence permits for non-seasonal work and the number of applications that have not been examined by the relevant authorities. For example, in 2007, about 30 percent of requested permits were issued, a figure that fell to about 10 percent in 2008. The delays in responding to applications and the increase in rejections have led some migrants to attempt to regularize 232 Camilla Devitt

their position within the framework of the amnesty for domestic and care workers of September 2009, despite the fact that they were not employed in these occupations. The frustration of those unable to obtain papers is exemplified by the 17-day protest of a group of migrants on top of a crane in Brescia, Lombardy, in November 2010. Moreover, a significant share of those issued with permissions to request visas for non-seasonal employment have also not subsequently requested residence permits, amounting to a third of those issued with permissions in 2007.32

TABLE 9.1 Distribution of migrant workers across sectors in Italy, average 2006 (percentages)

Agriculture 3.9 Industry 23.7 Construction 17.2 Commerce 9.6 Hotels and restaurants 9.0 Domestic services 18.7

Source: ISTAT Annual Report, 2006.

TABLE 9.2 Territorial distribution of resident foreigners and resident population in Italy, 2010 (in percentages)

Territory Resident Foreigners Resident Population North-West 35 27 North-East 27 19 Center 25 20 South 9 23 Islands 4 11

Total 100 100

Source: ISTAT Demo, 2010.

Irregular work is significant in Italy, particularly in the South, where it is estimated that over 18 percent of total employment is irregular. Ter- ritorial variance is less significant in the agriculture sector, the sector with the highest levels of irregularity. Irregular work constitutes over 20 percent of agricultural employment across Italy. Extremely high levels of irregular work in agriculture are found in Lazio (32.8 percent), Campania (31 percent), and Calabria (29.4 percent), while the lowest The Rosarno Revolt 233 rate of irregularity is in Trentino-Alto Adige, where it is slightly above 14 percent.33 Nevertheless, the caporalato (a system of exploitative labor intermediation), which is mostly associated with the South of Italy, is also present in the North, for example, in the Lombardy construction sector.

TABLE 9.3 Percentage of irregular work by sector and geographical distribution, 2007

Territory Agriculture Industry Construction Services North-West 23.4 1.6 6.6 11.6 North-East 22.9 1.5 2.7 11.2 Center 23.1 3.2 7.9 11.5 South 25.3 12.1 19.1 18.5 Italy 24.2 3.8 9.8 13.4 Source: Ministry of Labor, 2010.

Migrant workers are, in general, disadvantaged in terms of finding decent accommodations due to lower incomes and the discrimination of landlords and agencies. Nevertheless, the regions with the most public/private/mixed-housing initiatives for migrants (including the provision of information on the housing market, the construction of housing, and financial support) are in northern Italy.34 Moreover, the North-East consistently appears at the top of the list in the CNEL’s annual Integration Indexes, which measure Italian regions and provinces in terms of socio-occupational integration potential based on indicators such as access to accommodations and labor market opportunities. This ranking is explained by plentiful job opportunities and the social safety net supplied by both secular and Church associations.35 Indeed, stories of extremely poor working and living conditions, as well as violence toward migrant workers, generally hail from the Mezzogiorno. However, when the focus moves to the potential for migrant workers to reach the standard of living of the indigenous population (using “comparative criteria”), southern Italian regions have a much more positive integration potential than in those in the North (see table 9.4). Ironically, Riace, a municipality that is close to Rosarno in Calabria, has become a world-renowned model for migrant integration after the mayor decided to repopulate the town in the late 1990s by offering refugees and asylum-seekers food and accommodations, as well as electricity, as long as they agreed to work for a living and learn Italian. Since then, mixed (foreign-local) craft and construction businesses have 234 Camilla Devitt

TABLE 9.4 Index of Italian regions’ potential for socio-occupational integration of migrants, 2006 (top 10)

Absolute Criteria Comparative Criteria 1. Emilia-Romagna Sardinia 2. Friuli-Venezia Giulia Marche 3. Piemonte Friuli-Venezia Giulia 4. Lombardy Valle d’Aosta 5. Trentino-Alto Adige Umbria 6. Marche Piemonte 7. Veneto Sicily 8. Sicily Puglia 9. Sardinia Calabria 10. Abruzzo Trentino-Alto Adige Source: CNEL, 2009.

reopened, and sustainable tourism projects have been developed. Fur- thermore, a Censis comparative study on seasonal migrant workers in Caserta, Rimini, Trento, and Bolzano found the worst living conditions in the northern province of Trento.36 Similarly, the National Institute for Agricultural Economy asserts that the accommodations provided by employers for seasonal migrant workers in certain areas in northern Italy, such as Piemonte and Valle d’Aosta, are extremely poor.37 It appears that we cannot generalize regarding the conditions of seasonal migrant workers—or the potential of socio-occupational integration—in different parts of Italy. There is tremendous variation across the country and within regions. The absence of decent housing in Rosarno, as well as in northern provinces such as Trento, is notable. In the case of Rosarno, this can be explained by the fact that until the economic crisis of 2008, about 70 percent of seasonal migrant workers did not have a regular work permit and 90 percent were working informally.38 It is hardly surprising that local insti- tutions and employers did not provide decent housing for “illegal” migrant workers. More broadly speaking, the variation in local initiatives regarding the reception and integration of migrant workers is a result of the political ideology regarding the role of the state, public finances, the openness to immigration, and the strength of civil society. Regarding the last, in some territories, particularly where Catholic and right-wing political traditions are entrenched, religious and secular associations have an important role in providing services to the needy, including migrants. The Rosarno Revolt 235

Conclusion

Immigration policy-making in Italy is traditionally reactive, and the Rosarno crisis was not the first time that a “focusing event,” involving violence against migrant agricultural workers, has stimulated public policy. In fact, the establishment of the Italian migrant worker quota system in 1990 was catalyzed by the public uproar that followed the murder of a South African refugee employed in agricultural work in Campania in the summer of 1989. The incident triggered an anti-racism protest in Rome of over 100,000 people calling for a new immigration law.39 The 1989 case belongs to a particular phase in Italy’s immigration history—the period in which labor immigration became both numeri- cally and politically significant for the first time. Rosarno, on the other hand, can be conceived as a manifestation of the “coming of age” of immigrants in Italy. Unlike the situation with their predecessors, the legal status and cultural capital of the migrants involved in the demonstrations in Rosarno provided them with the means to protest against violent harassment. This reflects a growth in the legal immigrant population from just over 780,000 in 1990 to over 4 million in 2010. Italy now has a growing population of resident foreigners who show signs of constituting a new political voice. In fact, immigrant protests have been increasing in recent years, including, for example, the protest of mainly Ghanaian and Nigerian citizens against labor exploitation in Naples and Caserta in early October 2010. Furthermore, a quarter of the population of resident foreigners in Italy now consists of EU citizens, particularly Romanians. The presence of EU citizens in Italy is not conditional on employment, and they benefit from political rights, such as the right to vote and the right to stand in local and European elections. Consequently, they are in a stronger position to make demands than non-EU immigrants. Rosarno stimulated public debate and initiatives in the immigration and labor market arenas. However, an efficient labor immigration management system—specifically, a recalibration of the system into one regulating the entry of non-EU workers (or providing a means of legal entry into irregular work), instead of relying on ex-post regulariza- tions40—necessitates (1) a strong labor and immigration law enforce- ment apparatus, (2) the promotion of a culture of human resource planning, (3) anonymous (non-nominative) recruitment among small firms and households, and (4) a reduction in the average length of time needed for the issuing of work permits. The responsibility of employers and local governments to ensure that migrant workers have decent accommodations also needs to be clarified and enforced. Furthermore, 236 Camilla Devitt an efficient labor immigration management system needs to be accompanied by a concerted effort to raise public awareness of the positive impacts of labor immigration by the state, its social partners, and civil society. Finally, the competitiveness of Italian agriculture—and, indeed, the economy as a whole41—appears key to resolving questions of employment and poor working and living conditions for migrant workers.

Notes

1. The town council had been dismantled in 2008 on the grounds of infiltration by the ’Ndrangheta criminal organization and was governed by a prefect. 2. A. Custodero, “Maroni attacca: ‘C’è stata troppa tolleranza,’” La Repubblica, 8 January 2010. 3. Chamber of Deputies Assembly, 13 January 2010. 4. Senate Assembly, 12 January 2010. 5. C. Finotelli and G. Sciortino, “The Importance of Being Southern: The Making of Policies of Immigration Control in Italy,” European Journal of Migration and Law 11, no. 1 (2009): 119–138. 6. Senate Assembly, 12 January 2010. 7. On 18 September 2008, six Africans, two of whom were Ghanaian, were killed in a massacre perpetrated by the Camorra crime organization in the town of Castelvolturno, north of Naples, sparking violent protests from the immigrant community the next day. 8. Ministry of the Interior, Contrasto all’immigrazione illegale: Il ministro Maroni e il capo della polizia Manganelli in Ghana per la firma di un accordo tecnico (Rome: Ministry of the Interior, 2010). 9. Senate Assembly, 12 January 2010. 10. Ibid. Investigations carried out by the public prosecutor’s office of Palmi, involving the collaboration of 15 migrant workers, led to the arrest on 26 April of 30 individuals accused of facilitating illegal immigration—9 foreign labor mediators and 21 Italian producers. 11. Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Policy, Piano straordinario di vigilanza agricoltura/edilizia, Calabria-Campania-Puglia-Sicilia (Rome: Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Policy, 2010), 1. 12. Vouchers were introduced with Legislative Decree No. 276/2003 in order to regularize occasional work. The employer buys a number of vouchers worth 10 euros each, 7.50 of which goes to the worker. The remainder covers social contributions and administrative charges. 13. Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Policy, Piano straordinario di vigilanza agricoltura, 2. 14. C. Devitt, “The Migrant Worker Factor in Labour Market Policy Reform,” Euro- pean Journal of Industrial Relations 16, no. 3 (2010): 259–275. 15. E. Gualmini, “Still Dying at Work: The New Consolidation Act on Health and Safety in the Workplace,” in Italian Politics: Governing Fear, ed. G. Baldini and A. C. Bull. (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009), 152–170. The Rosarno Revolt 237

16. Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Policy, Nota del 22 Settembre 2010 (Rome: Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Policy, 2010). 17. The growing importance of the integration question is reflected in the “Provi- sions in the Area of Public Security Law” (Law No. 94/2009). Passed by the Berlusconi government in July 2009, it provides that foreigners applying for residence permits will have to sign an “integration agreement.” 18. Ministry of the Interior, Interviste-Ministro Roberto Maroni 15/2/2010 (Rome: Ministry of the Interior, 2010). 19. Senate Assembly, 2 March 2010. 20. Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Policy, Piano straordinario di vigilanza agricoltura. 21. Title V, Section III of the Single Text on Immigration (Legislative Decree No. 286/1998, modified by Legislative Decree No. 189/2002). 22. “Napolitano: ‘Oscurati legalità e solidarietà.’ L’Osservatore romano: ‘Italiani ancora razzisti,’” La Repubblica, 11 January 2010. 23. Ibid. 24. G. Baldessarro, “Immigrazione, il grido dei vescovi ‘Rosarno non è razzista,’” La Repubblica, 9 February 2010. 25. “Gli immigrati si fermano per un giorno,” Corriere della Sera, 1 March 2010. 26. “Epifani: ‘Subito un piano per il lavoro,’” Corriere della Sera, 1 May 2010. 27. See http://www.economist.com/node/15271071. 28. A. Cavazzani and G. Sivini, eds., Arance amare: La crisi dell’agrumicoltura italiana e lo sviluppo competitivo di quella spagnola (Soveria Monnelli: Rub- bettino, 1997). 29. European Commission, ‘Health Check’ of the Common Agricultural Policy (Brussels: European Commission, 2008); F. Piperno and E. Della Corte, “Rosarno l’alibi del razzismo e della ’Ndrangheta,” Il Sole 24 Ore, 2010, http:// ilquotidianodellacalabria.ilsole24ore.com. 30. ISTAT, Noi Italia 100 statistiche per capire il Paese in cui viviamo (Rome: ISTAT, 2010); L. Einaudi, Le politiche dell’immigrazione in Italia dall’Unità a oggi (Rome: Laterza, 2007); Ministry of the Interior, 1° Rapporto sugli immigrati in Italia (Rome: Ministry of the Interior, 2007). 31. Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Policy, Nota del Ministero del Lavoro e delle Politiche Sociali (Rome: Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Policy, 2010). 32. C. Asher, La sanatoria per le badanti e le colf del 2009: Fallimento o esaurimento di un modello? (Turin: Fieri, 2009); Einaudi, Le politiche dell’immigrazione in Italia. 33. Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Policy, Nota del 22 Settembre 2010. 34. Censis, Le politiche abitative per gli immigrati in Italia (Rome: Censis, 2005). 35. CNEL, Indici di integrazione degli immigrati in Italia VI rapporto (Rome: CNEL, 2009). 36. Censis, I lavoratori stagionali immigrati in Italia (Rome: Censis, 2002). 37. M. Cicerchia and P. Pallara, “Gli immigrati nel agricoltura italiana,” National Institute for Agricultural Economy, Rome, 2009, http://www.inea.it/public/ pdf_articoli/775.pdf. 38. Medici Senza Frontiere, “Una stagione all’inferno,” Rome, 2008, http://www. medicisenzafrontiere.it/msfinforma/comunicati_stampa.asp?id=1629. 39. Einaudi, Le politiche dell’immigrazione in Italia. 40. Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Policy, Nota del 22 Settembre 2010. 41. T. Boeri, R. Faini, A. Ichino, G. Pisauro, and C. Scarpa, eds., Oltre il declino (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2005).