It is for stories like Satnam's that we should apologize and rebel against gangmastering

The young Indian laborer could have been saved if he had been rescued in time by the Lovatos, who had already been under investigation for 5 years.In Latina the square tries to rebel.

• Satnam Singh, the young Indian laborer who died in the Agro-Pontine, could have been saved if he had been rescued in time.
• The company where he worked has been under investigation for 5 years for gangmastering, but has been able to continue making profits at the expense of its workers.
• There are 230 thousand exploited laborers with wages of 3-4 euros per euro for 12 hours a day in Italy.“Stories for which we should apologize and rebel” according to Marco Omizzolo, researcher and expert on gangmastering.

Satnam Singh, the 31-year-old Indian laborer who died in the Agro-Pontine last week, could have been saved.It was already the hypothesis of the investigators, who in fact were already investigating for manslaughter, negligence, now it is also the response of the autopsy carried out by the doctors on the body of the man, who died due to "copious bleeding".Who could have been stopped if, instead of abandoned without an arm in front of his home in the province of Latina, Singh had been transported by his employer directly to the emergency room, after the accident that had happened to him on the farm where he worked together with his wife.

In the name of Satnam, the Latina Indian community, together with the workers of the Municipality, organized a meeting demonstration and a day of strike for today, June 25th, which follows last Saturday's event which saw the participation of at least five thousand people, again in the capital of the Pontine province.“We never thought we would find ourselves faced with an act of this ferocity” he commented Gurmukh Sing, president of the Indian Community of Lazio association.“We have decided not to stand by and watch as our community continues to mourn its brothers.”

Satnam and the plague of gangmastering

At least, Satnam's death had the effect of rekindling the debate on the scourge of gangmastering, which is very strong in the Agro-Pontine area, lower Lazio, but widespread almost everywhere in the Italian countryside, from Puglia to Calabria, from Veneto to Tuscany.In 2021, according to the latest report from thePlacido Rizzotto Observatory, based on Istat data, around 230 thousand workers they were employed irregularly in the primary sector, with a large part concentrated in salaried work, which includes a substantial portion of non-resident foreigners employed in agriculture:It is essential that society takes note of these injustices and works to guarantee rights and dignity to all workers, regardless of their origin or legal status.

“The affair has highlighted a serious situation that seems to be worsening over time,” he said Latina prosecutor Giuseppe De Falco. “There are sectors, such as agriculture, that hire staff who agree to work in the absence of forms of protection and safety standards.The appeal to those who witness such incidents is to make it known by reporting it."

However, sometimes not even reporting is enough:from what emerges in these hours, the Agrilovato company, for which Satnam Singh worked, has already been subjected to an investigation for 5 years for crimes linked to the exploitation of workers and gangmastering, but in the meantime it has been able to continue producing, get rich, use labor at negligible costs and without protection or security.Until the case of the unfortunate Satnam. Marco Omizzolo, Eurispes researcher, in two books (Under master And For reasons of justice) documented the exploitation of Indian and non-Indian workers in the Agro Pontino, infiltrating for 3 months as a worker alongside them, and cites several cases of trials always postponed following complaints from foreign workers, due to a system in which micro -entrepreneurial crime is also linked to institutional collusion, evident also in the lack of controls, and the presence of large organized mafias, from the Camorra to the Ndrangheta.

“It is not the first time that we find ourselves faced with men, stories, women who in this province and elsewhere have not worked for 20 years, but are exploited, reduced to slavery, humiliated as people, forced to call the employer "master". work, to take doping substances to withstand exploitation, forced to suffer violence of various kinds:This is not the democratic Italy founded on work, as enshrined in our Constitutional Charter" stated Omizzolo, in the speech that became the most viral of the demonstration on Saturday 22 June in Latina - Being indignant is no longer enough, we must rebel together, ask for cancellation of the Bossi-Fin lawthe” on illegal immigration, “of the logic that inspired the security decrees, the Cutro decree, the flow decrees".And change the law on citizenship, underlined Omizzolo, to grant rights to those who really deserve them:“Satnam didn't vote, Satnam's owner did.”