Making history. Labour market and migrant workers in

the Piana del Sele's agriculture

Gennaro Avallone (Università di Salerno – gavallone@unisa.it)

Agriculture and migration in the European Union

International seminarUniversity of Bergamo, 24-25 October 2013

Contents

1. Introduction: aims and context

2. The structure of labor demand in the

'new' agriculture

3. Farm labor and the old and new migrants

4. Recent changes in the farm labor market

5. Forms of labor, legal and social

intermediation

6. Conclusions

1. Introduction (1)Aim:

Methodological notes: data and information has been obtained from in-depth interviews (with laborers, farmers and Italian privileged witnesses), ethnographic observations with immigrant workers and statistical sources.

the characteristics of the Piana del Sele's agricultural social organization

labor market

the immigrant labor history

to link

with

influenced now and in the past by different types of informal

intermediation

33

1. Introduction (2)

Context: The Piana del Sele is a rich agricultural area situated in Campania, Southern Italy.

Source: http://icbiagio.racine.ra.it/reg/reg/campania.htm

2. The structure of labor demand in the 'new' agriculture (1)

Since the 80s (increasingly in the last 15 years), the introduction of: new technologies, especially the greenhouse system, and new crops, because the spread of Fourth range products.

Source: http://www.hortidaily.com/article/1225/rss.xml

Source: Google Map

White coloured areas on the map are greenhouses

Fourth range products

2. The structure of labor demand in the 'new' agriculture (2)

Farming activities have become partially productive

throughout the year.

2000-2011: in the province of Salerno, a redouble of:

Since the 1980s a 'new' agriculture has developed

and a new social and economic history has born.

* greenhouse areas (from 3.027 to 6.925

hectares)

* greenhouse vegetable crops

(from 1.378.380 to 2.566.540 quintals)

2. The structure of labor demand in the 'new' agriculture (3)

This change has transformed the quality and structure of labor demand, oriented towards two areas of Italian and foreign workers disposable to flexible employment

driven by farms and market demand.

a stable area of workers for permanent productions (for 2010 Census, about 12% of foreign-born laborers and 27% of Italians employed on a regular basis) a flexible area of workers for seasonal and daily activities (vastly composed by immigrants).

Census data show that half the farmworkers is foreign. If we add the informal laborers: migrant farmworkers are much more than the Italians (about 5000-6000)

Moroccans and Romanians

(agriculture)

Indian (livestocks)

3. Farm labor and the old and new migrants

Migrant laborers have become the key actors of the local agricultureHistorically, the first protagonists were the Moroccans and other Northern African laborers. They have faced the dark side of the local agricultural labor relations heritage, characterized by informal intermediaries (caporali) and employment (Gribaudi, 1990).Over time, a social regulation of the relations of production have been organized, fixing informally wage and working conditions.

Changes in the local labor market have happened and new forms of competition between different national groups have emerged in the last decade, in particular for the entry of Romanian workers.Effect: weakening of the regulation built during the 1990s.

BUT

4. Recent changes in the farm labor market

Some changes have taken place over the past ten years. They have influenced labor costs and conditions, but not the old informal labor recruitment.New relations between laborers have emerged.

This relations are characterized by reciprocal mistrust, made worse by the Romanian laborers' willingness to work for less money (daily wage reduced from 32-35 to 27-30 euros per 7-8 hours worked).A vicious circle of separation and self-segregation has occurred. It has increased farm labor's weakness in the relations of production.The old social regulation has entered crisis and migrants have become more dependent on informal intermediation services.

5. Labor, legal and social intermediation (1)

The most visible form of informal intermediation involves the labor market. Protagonists usually are countrymen, that have become caporali (gangmasters), but work without an organization. A part of migrants has a regular and stable employment and do not need intermediaries. But, the wider part of them passes through the gangmaster and informal relations of recruitment. This intermediation service

has different answers:

for single laborer or team

for temporary or seasonal jobs

for migrants with no means of transport

5. Labor, legal and social intermediation (2)

Local and national institutions recognize this condition, addressed with no or weak resources.

The "public employment service against illegality" in agriculture experimented by the Municipality of Eboli is an example: a service usable on voluntary basis but without real powers.

The role of informal labor intermediaries is structural. They realize a function wanted by farmers and necessarily reproduced by migrant workers.

Is it possible change a structural mechanism with voluntary actions?

5. Labor, legal and social intermediation (3)

Social intermediation service:

Legal intermediation service:

In these cases, migrants organize themselves, paying if it is useful, to obtain documents, the key to freedom but also a 'bingo'

A less visible but vast array of informal and formalized intermediation activities is of legal and social form. between sending and host

countriesbetween (often false) employers and real migrants, as in the cases of the Amnesties or the annual immigration quotas

decree.

for housingfor health servicesfor informal banking services

These kinds of intermediation are enabled by some social barriers: racist, language, spatial and

legal barriers.

6. Conclusions (1)1) An intermediation service to pay is ready for each barrier to face

2) The relationship between immigrants and the host society is mainly structured through migrant and Italian gatekeepers. The protagonists occupy a subaltern position.

3) Access to resources and rights depends on enabling networks that reproduce the mechanisms of migrants' subordination.

4) This comprehensive structure of intermediation increase the power of various groups of the local society, at the expense of the migrant population.

6. Conclusions (2)

The host society and local institutions have to respond to a simple question:

are they interested to live together with an autonomous immigrant population or a foreign-born subaltern population to exploit easily,

(especially in the weakest labor market areas, such as agriculture, domestic services and small-size building firms)?