INPS inspection on 109 farms found 57% off-book workers

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 25 - Pensions and Social Security Agency INPS, Carabinieri police and labor inspectors have carried out a joint operation to crack down on the gangmaster system in the agricultural sector, discovering that 56.9% of workers employed by the 109 farms surveyed were not regularly hired, officials said on Thursday.
    The inspections were carried out on Wednesday in the provinces of Mantua, Modena, Latina, Caserta and Foggia.
    Overall, out of 109 farms inspected, 62 presented irregularities (56.9%), while out of the 505 employees checked, 236 were off-the-books (46.7%). including three minors and 136 non-EU citizens.
    In particular, 23 off-the-book workers did not have a residence permit, officials said.
    Earlier this month, police arrested the owner of an agricultural company that employed Satnam Singh, an off-the-books 31-year-old farm laborer who bled out after being dumped outside his hut with an arm severed by wrapping machinery placed beside him on a fruit picking box at Latina south of Rome.
    The death of Singh, one of the thousands of Indian immigrants who work the fields around Latina for slave wages and in dire conditions, beset by gangmasters, has caused outrage across the country over the widespread phenomenon. (ANSA).