Italy: Immigrant Farmworkers Rebel vs. Racist Exploitation

Questions have arisen over the migrant workers’ revolt in the small Italian town of Rosarno, Calabria. The NY Times (1/12) suggested that the reason for the violence  was  locals and immigrants competing for the fruit harvesting jobs, although immigrants had worked in the fields for years. Fifty people were injured, cars burned and windows smashed. The major Italian news agency claimed “racism and poor conditions fueled violence,” ignoring not only Rosarno’s anti-racism demonstration after the conflict, but also the national anti-racism demonstration of 250,000 held in Rome last October.2 Once again, the bosses’ media didn’t dig below the surface.

The Comitato Lavoratori Immigrati e Italiani Uniti (Committee of United Italian and Immigrant Workers), an immigrants’ rights organization in Rome, analyzed what happened. This report from Italy is based on that analysis.

The violence that exploded after local youths shot at three African laborers grew out of an intense class struggle that began years ago, when wholesalers increased profits by reducing the prices paid for agricultural products and local residents refused to accept  a one-euro wage-reduction for each box of fruit. To make up the cheap labor shortfall, the Calabrian Mafia, or ’Ndrangheta, began organizing “illegal” immigration. Africans were promised decent pay and living conditions, but were forced to accept much lower wages and inhuman living conditions after arriving in Italy as undocumented workers.

The Italian press reported one of the workers as saying, “I, too, was protesting... but then the situation got worse and they began shooting.... I can’t go back [to Rosarno].”

It’s not hard to read between the lines. The immigrant workers were not protesting random shootings, but rather lousy conditions and pay. To intimidate them into keeping their mouths shut and their heads low, the ’Ndrangheta began shooting at immigrants with air rifles. The gangsters’ strategy backfired, and Rosarno became the site of open class warfare.

Italy’s current government has adopted a tough stance toward “illegal” immigration. It shipped about 1,200 undocumented workers to detention centers. Others fled to nearby regions. The xenophobic Interior Minister, however, has announced that more than half will be given working papers.

The fruit rots on the trees, but that’s not the only thing rotten in Calabria. In a town of fewer than 16,000 residents, it’s not possible that almost 2,000 Africans could have been employed in the fields and not been noticed by the police. Calabria was a concrete example of the class struggle, illustrating how capitalism not only needs a reserve army of the unemployed on a global scale, but also requires its government servants and organized crime to regulate that workforce.

What happened in Calabria shows that so-called unorganized and unskilled immigrant workers possess a militant class-consciousness, and that it’s the bosses profiting from their labor — and not presumably native-born workers — who foment racist violence.

While currently modest in size and influence, PLP in Italy is helping to develop an international anti-racist movement that proposes a revolutionary solution to the oppression faced by exploited and superexploited workers alike. J

Sources:

 Donadio, Rachel. “Looking Past the Facade of Italian City After Riots.” New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/europe/13italy.html?scp=1&sq=Donadio&st=cse>.

  “Migrants ‘treated badly in Italy’ MSF and UN say racism and poor conditions fuelled violence.” 12 January, 16:44. <http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/collection/rubriche/english/ 2010/01/12/visualizza_new.html_1672936977.html>

 Corriere del Mezzogiorno 13 gennaio 2010 “Gli africani di Rosarno a Castel Volturno.” <http://corrieredelmezzogiorno.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/2010/13-gennaio-2010/gli-africani-rosarno-castel-volturnoe-coloniali-la-spesa-diventano-negrozi-1602281073901_print.html>

  La Repubblica. “Maroni annuncia: asilo politico per gli immigrati feriti a Rosarno.” http://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2010/01/17/news/maroni_su_rosarno-1984669/