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.
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