ROME (ITALPRESS) – “Istat data reveal the supremacy of our agriculture, demonstrating the strength and resilience of a sector that, despite geopolitical crises, the effects of climate change and unfair competition on the market, confirms its strategic importance not only economically, but also for the well-being of our territories and the entire country. However, we must not forget that the wealth produced has also been made possible thanks to more than a million agricultural workers, both compatriots and foreigners, whose professionalism makes it possible to ensure quality food on our tables and to enhance the value of Made in Italy in the world.” Thus Enrica Mammucari, Uila general secretary, on the preliminary estimate of the 2024 agriculture accounts by Istat. “This record must strengthen the social partners even more in the goal of promoting the overall quality of the entire production chain, starting from good employment and legality and resolutely opposing all those companies that profit on labor rights and create dumping to the majority of healthy companies that apply laws and contracts,” Mammucari continues.”All the more so today, after the new arrests of the legal representative and the owner of the Lovato company, in which Satnam Singh lost his life, thanks to the excellent work of the police who uncovered a chain of blackmail and exploitation against people who are fragile due to their status as immigrants without residence permits, we strongly reiterate the need to strengthen controls, the coordination of the various inspection authorities and the cross-referencing of the data in their possession to combat exploitation and illegal labor brokering. It is then more urgent than ever to implement the important regulation, provided for in the Agriculture Decree and won after so many years and so many battles by the Trade Union, regarding the Database of Contracts in Agriculture: inside the non-genuine contracts and behind the phenomenon of the so-called “landless companies and cooperatives” are hidden, in fact, too often, the most ruthless forms of exploitation of thousands of workers, not only immigrants.””On the day when we celebrate the primacy of the value of agriculture in Europe, we ask to continue the confrontation, undertaken last year, with the Ministers of Labor Calderone and Agriculture Lollobrigida and the most representative organizations of the sector to unite all the forces in the field and become champions also in the Legality of food both produced in Italy and imported from abroad. An institutional table with the social partners is also indispensable to address more generally the issue of the labor market, migration policies and active policies.””The challenges of the transitions that Italian agriculture has before it,” concludes the general secretary, “are won by investing in regular labor, defending the dignity of people and making attractive a job that is essential for the production of food, the protection of the environment and the preservation of our territories.
– Photo: Photogram Agency -(ITALPRESS).
