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ABSTRACT
In Apulia (Southern Italy), the adverse incorporation of local suppliers within global production networks (GPNs) in the tomato and textile-clothing industries has reinforced the processes of informalization and exploitation of a segmented workforce. In contrast with the literature that identifies the state as a residual regulator, or a mere facilitator of GPNs, we show that the state is called to intervene to ease the social costs of adverse incorporation. Our analysis, however, reveals that public interventions targeting supplier firms and relying only on market mechanisms to foster upgrading, fail to protect workers because they neglect the structure and power relations of the networks as well as the potentially progressive role that labour can play in formalization processes. This paper, therefore, adopts the concept of adverse incorporation and provides novel evidence to investigate the forces that drive the deterioration of working conditions and the structural causes of public policy’s failures within GPNs.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the informants who contributed to this research and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
2 Following Seawright and Gerring (Citation2008, p. 299), ‘a typical case study focuses on a case that exemplifies a stable, cross-case relationship’. Such typicality allows the researcher to focus on the within-case mechanisms at work. In our case study, the firms, workers and institutions analysed are typical examples of adverse incorporation. This allows an analysis of adverse incorporation’s effects, policy responses to such incorporation, and the result of such policies.
3 See: www.anicav.it.
4 Author’s elaboration on agri.istat.it (2017 data).
5 Author’s elaboration on dati.censimentoagricoltura.istat.it (2010 data).
6 At the time of writing, however, the Italian Parliament is discussing the possibility to regulate the online auctions. See: http://documenti.camera.it/leg18/pdl/pdf/leg.18.pdl.camera.1549_A.18PDL0065320.pdf.
7 In Italy, when declaring workers’ employment and salary data in agriculture, employers must submit the so-called ‘agricultural labour declaration’ (DMAG) to INPS. The law gives them the possibility to submit the DMAG at the end of each trimester. This mechanism often leads to tax and contributory frauds since the employer can declare to public authorities only a part of the working days actually carried out by the labourer and pay the rest of his work cash-in-hand without taxes and social contributions. In case of inspections the employer can claim he would have registered the informal workers’ working day at the end of the period for submitting the DMAG.
8 As mentioned, given the high level of informality, the lists of temporary agricultural laborers published annually by INPS, provide just a partial representation of the agricultural labour force really recruited.
9 In agriculture, 51 working days represent the minimum threshold to access unemployment and other welfare benefits.
10 The pay rate is established by the Foggia province collective contract for fixed-term farm labourers signed by the most representative business associations and trade unions in 2019.
11 See also Peano (Citation2017).
13 The “Laboratory on Labour exploitation” keeps track of the court cases initiated on the ground of the new crimes introduced by the Law 199/2016. According to the Laboratory data, by the end of 2019, only 9 court cases regarding the crimes of labour exploitation and illicit intermediation (i.e. caporalato) were initiated in the province of Foggia since the coming into force of the law (See: http://www.adir.unifi.it/laboratorio/tabella.htm; see also: Gore, Citation2019, p. 26).
14 The latest data available (2010) accounted for 48.199 active agricultural firms in the province of Foggia. In 2020 only 213 firms from this province enrolled to the HQFN (see: https://www.inps.it/docallegatiNP/Mig/Allegati/Aziende_ammesse_al_14_02_2020.pdf.
15 According to the Istat classification Ateco 2007/NACE Rev 2, the industry as a whole (sections B, C, D and E) includes the whole manufacturing together with the quarrying-mining sector.
16 It is possible to roughly estimate a unionization rate of around 30% in the TCF sector. Yet, such measure needs to be taken as a very generous proxy since the main union federations active in the TCF also include other industries (such as energy, water, pharmaceutical industry) that are likely to be more densely unionized than TCF.
17 Confirmed by the interviews with the president and vice-president of the Consortium.
18 Already in 2008–2009, the so called “security package” criminalized irregular immigration and residence, making them penal offences and punishing with fines and jail anyone that offer help or assistance to illegal immigrants. Yet, this is only one piece of many other laws, policies and regulations – such as the latest ‘Immigration and Security’ Decree (Decreto Sicurezza e Immigrazione) adopted by the Italian government in 2018 – that frame immigration as an issue of public order rather than as a matter of social and integration policies (for example, see: Colombo, Citation2013; Gargiulo, Citation2018).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Francesco Bagnardi
Francesco Bagnardi is a PhD researcher at the Social and Political Science Department of the European University Institute in Fiesole, Italy. His research interests lie in between political economy and labour sociology. His current research focuses on informal employment and industrial relations within global production networks in Southern and Eastern Europe.
Giuseppe D'Onofrio
Giuseppe D’Onofrio obtained his PhD in Social Sciences at University of Naples Federico II in 2019. He has been visiting PhD researcher at EWERC (European Work and Employment Research Center) at University of Manchester, UK. His PhD research was focused on exploitation of migrant workers in Southern Italy within global tomato value chain. His main research interests are migrations, informal work, unions and working-class conditions. He’s editor of the independent magazine of social enquiry Napoli Monitor.
Lidia Greco
Lidia Greco is Associate Professor in Economic and Labour Sociology at the University of Bari. Her research interest revolves around territorial (regional/urban) and industrial change also in a global perspective. Through this lens she has focused on some research themes: firms, people, places; labour markets and policies; institutions and governance. In the last ten years she has researched and published on the relationships between global production networks, development and labour.