Milan Center for Food Law and Policy and Italian supermarket giant Coop have demanded an end to illegal work in the European Union's agriculture sector.
The president of the Milan Center for Food Law and Policy, Livia Pomodoro, has called on the European Parliament for EU legislation to fight labor exploitation in the agricultural sector.
The Milan Center for Food Law and Policy, a permanent observatory created in February 2014 by Expo SpA, the city of Milan, the Lombardy region and the Milan chamber of commerce, launched the initiative, "Be Aware," together with Italian consumers cooperative "Coop."
The campaign is aimed at promoting a European legislative framework in favor of good practices against labor exploitation in agriculture, a Europe-wide phenomenon that often involves migrants.
A common practice in southern and eastern Europe
Illegal work is particularly common in southern and eastern Europe, according to latest data published in the report, "Best practices against work exploitation in agriculture." The study said that illegal workers in agriculture in Romania and Portugal represented 40 and 60 percent of the sector's workforce respectively.
In Poland, illegal farm workers exceeded 25 percent and in Italy 30 percent. Germany and Austria have an estimated 10 percent of illegal workers employed in the sector, according to the study. The European average is 25 percent.
The report cited other examples of good practices including projects promoted by Catholic charity Caritas in Italy, French regulations that eliminated illegal work in harvesting and technological innovation thanks to which agriculture provides work and integration opportunities for migrants while boosting the local economy in Spain's Almeria region.
The President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, stressed that the issue cannot only be dealt with at a national level, but also at a European level to reaffirm the "basic values that gave life to the EU." Illegal labor also gives an unfair advantage to companies exploiting workers, lawmakers noted.
Fragmentation of national contexts makes EU-wide approach difficult
Democratic Party (PD) European MP Patrizia Toia, who is also the vice-president of the industry committee, noted that it was necessary to "counter phenomena unworthy of a civil society" with a mobile workforce in Europe. Nevertheless, the fragmentation of national contexts made an EU-wide approach difficult.
The vice-president of the EP's agricultural committee, Paolo De Castro, noted how previous attempts to provide funding only to agricultural companies following specific labor standards, as seen with the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) reforms of agricultural commissioners Franz Fischler and Dacian Ciolos, were unfortunately "unsuccessful."
According to European lawmaker and social affairs committee member ,Elena Genile, a starting point could be represented by the ''European platform against undeclared work'' launched in 2016 by the European Commission. The president of the national association of consumer cooperatives Ancc-Coop, Stefano Bassi, stressed that good practices already existed, talking about the campaign "Buoni e giusti" or good and fair. He said that suppliers for Coop, the largest grocery chain in Italy, pledged to abide by labor laws and undergo routine checks, with the risk of losing their client if they were found not to respect workers' rights.