The management of Covid19 pandemic and its impact on migrant farmworkers in Italy: anthropological insights

Abstract

PurposeTwo important measures concerning the management of the workforce were introduced in Italy during the COVID-19–related health emergency: the regularization of irregular migrants working in the domestic and agro-industrial sector, and the introduction of the health-pass requirement to access all workplaces. This article analyses the impacts of such measures on a specific category of workers: migrant farmworkers, notably racially subaltern, marginalized and exploited. Implicit ideological and normative assumptions underlying Italian policies to address the health emergency and related labor shortages raise important questions about the meaning of “life” and whose lives matter in emergency contexts, which this article aims to address.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on the case study of the informal settlements for seasonal migrant workers in the agro-industrial district of Capitanata (Apulia).FindingsBased on the aforementioned case study, this article shows that Italian measurs concerning the management of the workforce during the COVID-19–related health emergency resulted in various forms of blackmail to which migrant farmworkers were especially subjected, and increased their exploitability and “expulsability” from the labor market. In particular, it argues that the aforementioned measures resulted in significant shifts in the relationship between migrant farmworkers and the state, on the one hand, and between migrant farmworkers and employers, on the other.Originality/valueRather than promoting migrant farmworkers' social, economic and health rights, this double shift turned into increased oppression, exploitability and dependency on the employer.

Guest editorial: State policies and regulations towards migrant work in times of, and beyond, the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Besides the acute labour shortages, public health concerns also played a role in State interventions, such as the State regularization that Italy adopted during the pandemic (see Vergnano, 2023). While the adoption of the initiative was motivated by a wish to improve the work and health conditions of undocumented workers in agriculture and domestic work, Vergnano shows that the practical implementation of the regularization, however, hardly improved the position of the workers concerned.…”

The ‘Long Spring’ of migration management: Labour supply in the pandemic-induced EU border regime

“…Both industries were defined as ‘essential’ in the first pandemic stage – namely, indispensable to ensure social reproduction. The definition of ‘essential’ (a category often reserved for workers without the right to strike) is one of the novelties introduced by the pandemic management at the discursive level, to justify exploitative practices, hierarchisation processes within the labour force, and a deepening of power relations between the state and employers, on one hand, and the workers, on the other (an approach that I describe elsewhere in terms of biolegitimacy; see Vergnano, 2023. See also Costantini, 2022).…”