Who is striking and why in the Prato textile district

In the midst of a serious crisis, the textile and clothing district is raising the alarm about workers' rights in the Italian fashion supply chain.

• Dozens of workers of Pakistani origin are striking in Prato to obtain regular and fair working conditions in some companies in the fashion district.
• The strikes in Prato in recent days are the latest case to shake the district, as explained by Luca Toscano, representative of the SUDD Cobas union which is organizing the demonstrations.
• The tension in the fashion sector continues to grow due to a profound crisis in the entire sector, which is blocking orders from the brand, with a consequent increase in unemployment and requests for layoffs in Tuscan manufacturing, both in the textile-yarn sector and in packaging and leather goods, including high-end ones.

“We were born with the idea of ​​wanting to unionize what was, wrongly, considered ununionable, that is, workplaces with people of foreign origin,” he explains Luca Toscano, one of the organizers of the Prato strikes and territorial coordinator of the Prato-Florence Trade union union democracy dignity (Sudd) Cobas, a company born six years ago in the textile and packaging district of Prato.Since Sunday 6 October the union has been alongside a few dozen Pakistani workers from some companies in the Prato fashion sector, who they go on strike indefinitely to get something very simple, i.e. a Regular contract of 40 hours a week.Since the first days of the strike, some companies have opened negotiations for the regularization of workers.

“They are very young Pakistani boys, aged 22, 23,” explains Toscano, “who work in five micro-enterprises, with less than 12 employees, who deal with ironing, logistics, cutting zips, sewing small leather accessories.”The owners of these companies are Chinese and this has sparked big headlines in the newspapers, "but their client companies are Italian and European", comments Toscano, "in this case in the ready-to-wear-fast fashion sector, and they are totally conniving with a system which lives thanks to the exploitation of workers, because end customers strangle supplier companies with low prices. They demand rates for which it is mathematical that people should be made to work illegally.In the past we have worked in cases with Chinese owners and Pakistani owners, for us this issue has no relevance."

The scenario behind the Prato strikes

The Prato district, linked to textiles and clothing manufacturing, with all the related services, is extremely fragmented, with a myriad of different companies, small, medium and large, serving customers of the fast fashion, but also of luxury:"AND there is no difference in how workers are treated”, comments Toscano, “because the system is the same, as we can confirm in the Montblanc case”.This is a still open case, also covered by international newspapers such as Reuters:Z Production of Campi Bisenzio would have lost the Montblanc contract after the workers unionized, while the brand owned by the Swiss giant Richemont chose to relocate the production of leather accessories elsewhere (the union and workers protested until in Geneva with “Shame in Italy” signs).

An indefinite strike is the only solution:“When you work illegally, when you have nothing, you can't stop the mobilization, either you get something or you're out, you lose everything,” explains Toscano, “we have had cases of success and regular hiring, even after strikes lasting several months.It's important to us dispel the narrative that these people of foreign origin are inert in the face of injustices, as if they decided on their own to exploit themselves.It's absolutely not true, they need access to the fighting tools that are available in Italy to self-determine", concludes Toscano.

The Pakistani community in the district has been growing strongly in recent years, mostly young men, forced, as in the case of these strikes, to work 80 hours a week without any protection, every day in conditions of insecurity.Audits by brands are not effective, as was also evident in the cases of gangmastering and exploitation that came to light in Milan, while the labor inspectorates lack resources or, Toscano always explains, "the sanctions they manage to impose are not sufficient deterrents, because companies put this risk in their balance sheet, if once a year or even less you are sanctioned but too little, it is economically more convenient to continue in the same way".

“The fashion supply chain throughout Italy is suffering greatly, due to a massive drop in orders.I have never witnessed such a dark period for the Prato district, not even in 2008,” he explains Silvia Gambi, founder of Only sustainable fashion and professor of textile and fashion chain management at the University of Florence, “in this context tensions can develop. Prato is the largest textile and clothing district in Europe, there are 6 thousand companies, it cannot be generalized.It is right to commit ourselves to bringing companies that do not respect the rules back into legality, but at the same time those that operate responsibly must be supported."Their "cousins" in the Scandicci area, dedicated to high-end leather goods, are in the same crisis, with several companies in redundancy, even those that supply the best-known luxury brands.

The crisis in the Prato district and beyond

“The fashion supply chain has a unique peculiarity”, continues Gambi, “the brands that sell do not, in the majority of cases, own the factories where they produce.In moments of crisis, brands reduce or cancel orders without much notice, to suppliers with whom they have perhaps collaborated for many years, for more than a generation, in the case of family businesses.This makes production planning difficult for a manufacturing company that finds itself suffering, but without having the power or tools to emerge from the crisis."

A full-blown crisis so widespread that it has done so move the Municipality of Prato himself to ask Parliament for further funding for the redundancy fund, with unemployment claims continuing to increase for several months.“A generalized crisis both for those who make yarns, like us, and for those who provide third-party fashion services,” he confirms Gabriele Innocenti, second generation at the helm of Omega yarns, a historic and excellent local company that seeks to combine Prato tradition with contemporary sustainability, through regenerated products and attention to water and energy consumption.“We need to mobilize resources at a central level to deal with an unprecedented crisis which has affected everyone due to various factors, both those who operate in the low and high-end sectors.From full warehouses due to post-covid over-orders, to increases in energy and raw material prices, up to the wars that have effectively closed various markets", continues Innocenti, who specifies how much the damage from the floods in a year ago in the district (in his company, considered medium-small, the damages reported are over three million euros).“We expect a drop in turnover of 32 percent compared to a year ago.However, I fear this is a structural crisis that must be managed in a more complex way:brands have drastically reduced orders, because the pieces are not leaving the stores.This is also due to a change in people's habits, who make other purchasing choices.We need to rethink the production paradigms of our economy as we know it."

The Prato district is extremely stratified and inhabited by different actors, the historic Italian textile yarn manufacturing, the Chinese entrepreneurs who provide third-party services and ready-to-wear clothing manufacturing, up to the new owners of Pakistani origin.Until now everyone has felt part of separate realities, with different business strategies, whereas today for the first time the crisis seems to have affected everyone.The solution cannot be to eliminate the fundamental rights of workers, but to act in synergy, where possible, to redesign the production system and the relationship with the final clients.