Europe's largest textile district goes on strike

In Prato, the largest textile center in Europe but also a production site notoriously plagued by labor exploitation, protests by workers from some Chinese-run businesses in the district began yesterday. According to the union that called the strike, the Sudd Cobas Prato-Firenze, some textile companies in Prato allegedly make workers work more than 80 hours a week, 12 hours a day without rest days, with employees paid under the table and without any protections. The union claims that some employees were asked to return their 13th-month salary, others received fake payslips, or were never paid at all, and that the contract (which usually announces part-time employment) is never respected. Among the companies involved in the strike are a bag and belt production site, an ironing company, a custom zipper factory, a weaving company, a clothing manufacturer specializing in Made in China garments, and a fast fashion factory.

The employees on strike in Prato since yesterday reported their working conditions to the press. Many of them belong to the Pakistani community, which, after the Chinese, is one of the largest in the district. They say they were forced to accept the work because finding stable employment without asylum permits is even more difficult, and some don't speak Italian well, so they had to settle. Speaking to Fatto Quotidiano, one of the workers reported being treated “like an animal” and having to sweat just to receive the payslip they were owed. The union says the problem is not the inspections, which are often manipulated in favor of the business owners, but the laws that allow managers to bypass them with little difficulty. For the representatives of Sudd Cobas Prato-Firenze, the first step to solving the problem is to solve the crisis in the clothing sector, which has worsened over the past year due to the war in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip. Like the industrial sector, the union reminds us, the artisanal sector is also suffering, to the detriment of the Made in Italy label that the country has always been so proud of.