Morganne Blais-McPherson reported on October 28 from Labor Notes, which addresses the current state of labor disputes: “Immigrant workers in the textile industry have won a long fight against the 84 hour working week in Italy.” It has been produced in Prato, of renowned prestige in the clothing industry, near Florence. “Tired of working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, textile workers in Italy are at the centre of an ever stronger movement to achieve ‘right 8 x 5’, the eight-hour day five days a week.”

On 12 October three Pakistani workers returned to the Texprint factory in Prato after winning the strike started in January to achieve a 40-hour working week. At the entrance, more workers were welcomed and the union members Si Cobas were screamed: “Mai piu schiavi!” (Slave never again). If Cobas indicated that he hoped that the company would soon readmit the other workers who had participated in the strike.

The Texprint conflict has brought to light the surprising working conditions suffered by some works within the Italian industry (for European standards) and the violent responses of the State to its demands, such as employers. Prato is one of the strong centres of the fashion industry produced by the legendary Made in Italy in Italian Tuscany.

Although denied in the public, it has long been known that in the industrial estate of Prato they were carrying out 12-hour daily days from China, South Asia and East Africa, often without a contract. Texprint is presented on the website as follows: “Our products are the result of rigorous studies following the latest trends. We have a specialized team attentive to the fashion of each moment.” However, under the shadow of the fashion image, Texprint employed workers in conditions similar to slavery to move machines to color fabrics of all kinds with digital stamping

Many workers had an apprenticeship contract to reduce social burdens such as taxes and keep the worker in precarious condition. Although the agreement of the textile industry at Italian level guarantees workers the payment of holidays and public holidays, sick leave, compensation for work accidents, etc., those of Telprint lacked them.

Some of them resorted to the small and combative union Sindacato Intercategoriale Cobas (SI Cobas). If Cobas (‘Cobas’ is Comitati di base abbreviated), founded in 2010, is particularly well known in northern Italy and deals with the rights of migrant workers in the logistics field. Its reputation is harsh because it uses strikes, street breaks and workplace blocks. In these cases, the owners try to avoid the barrier by using private vehicles of entry and exit of materials, bringing the jobs to other factories, etc. On the contrary, workers need help to keep the fence firmly 24 hours a day, which is food, sleeping camp… and to deal with the owners’ thugs.

INVISIBLE SLAVES
Quoting bullies is not foolishness. In August, the men sent by the company attacked those who were in the picet with sticks and stones, in front of the police who washed their hands, the images were disseminated through social networks. Not only has it happened in Texprint, but in Prathon on 11 October they went to beat the owners and the servant they brought to the immigrant workers who protested at the doors of the Dreamland company. Four workers were sent to the hospital injured. The employees also denounce the intervention of the Mafia.

In the images of the event it is evident that some of the aggressors are of Chinese origin and have an explanation. In the industrial city of Prato, which produces about 20% of Italy's tissue exports, 24% of workers are foreign, and more than half are Chinese, officially 12,000 people, but some sources consider more than 20,000. The 3,000 workshops that the Chinese run in Prato are the subcontractors of the companies that sell Made in Italy, a clear example of the so-called internal relocation that, despite being strong in Europe, is barely menciona.La Délocalisation sur

place – literally the relocation on the ground – was devised by the anthropologist Emmanuel Terray to describe in 1999 this fundamental element of neoliberal globalization. Its relocation explains how, through the employment of foreign non-unemployed workers, we copy in the same capitalist metropolis the same working conditions suffered by workers in the Third World: extremely short wages, elimination of sponsorships, without the right to join unions, days without borders, charges in black…

“As a result – Terray said two decades ago that things have not been corrected – companies that do not have the possibility of relocating their activity use illegal work as if they were relocated abroad, is what is délocalisation sur place. In part, internal relocation gives more advantages to the employer than relocation abroad, because with the latter you have to send, on the one hand, the problems of time (more to bring here what has occurred outside) and on the other, several technicians or responsible abroad, more expenses”.

Immigrants who do not have access to all roles therefore have a fundamental role in the analysis of Terray in five sectors, when it comes to reducing the coasts in a rich West that supposedly has regulated its labour market. In the field of public works, the large companies that obtain administrative contracts keep their jobs clean, but the subcontractors that have to do all the jobs have to resort to non-regulated immigrants to enter the war of cheap prices. Hospitality is the second sector affected by the black work epidemic, accommodation, hotels, etc. The third sector is textiles. And the other two are caring for people and agriculture, which need cheap labor and a lot of it.