More than 20 migrants were found hidden in a sweat shop in Spain. According to reports from the Reuters news agency – citing police reports – the migrants were forced to work in unhygienic conditions for two euros per hour. Three people have been arrested.
A new report reveals that the coronavirus emergency has worsened the situation for many migrants in Italy. More foreign farm workers are reportedly being exploited now, and many domestic workers have since lost their jobs.
Around 40 undocumented migrants who worked for the French delivery service Stuart during the coronavirus lockdown were dismissed after the restrictions were eased. While the company says it’s complying with the law, the workers claim Stuart knew it was employing undocumented foreigners.
Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte on Monday presented stay permits to four foreign citizens who were involved in an episode of worker exploitation last June. Three of the foreigners who received permits were coworkers of Thomas Daniel, a 41-year-old from Liberia who was killed along with an Italian worker in a collapse at a construction site in Naples. The fourth stay permit was issued to Daniel's widow.
An Italian amnesty for workers employed 'off the books', including irregular migrants, has attracted more than 207,000 applications. Most, however, came from Italians rather than migrants. Meanwhile, close to 13,000 migrants applied for a six-month extension to their stay permit linked to the amnesty.
The activist Aboubakar Soumahoro has launched the Day Laborers League to bring migrants working in Italy's southern fields together to fight for dignified working conditions and against exploitation.
The trade union CGIL said Tuesday that 1,781 migrant workers in the agricultural sector in Italy's Puglia region had received papers as part of an amnesty out of over 15,000 with expired stay permits. The trade union asked for an extension to the deadline for the submitting of requests to be included in the amnesty, which is currently August 15.
CILD, the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights, has compiled a list of frequently asked questions about the regularization measure in Italy. The decree is of particular concern to undocumented foreigners working in Italy as well as for migrants whose residence permit may have expired after October 31, 2019.
The labor exploitation of migrant farmworkers in Piana di Gioia Tauro, in Italy's southern region of Calabria, continues amid conditions aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, medical aid organization MEDU claims in a new report.
A union for farmworkers FLAI-CGIL has opened an office in the southern Italian city of Taranto to support foreign workers and help them report cases of exploitation, in order to fight the gangmaster system.
Nearly 32,000 applications for the regularization of migrant workers have been presented to the Italian interior ministry in the first two weeks of this month after legislation approved in May came into force on June 1, according to official data released on June 15. A reported 91% of applications concerned migrant home helps and carers. The government said applications are rising steadily.
After years of service, hundreds of undocumented deliverymen have been laid off by meal delivery company Frichti in Paris. After the couriers took to the streets, they received public support from different organizations. Now the couriers are asking to return to work and to be regularized.