A Tool For Workers' Struggles Base Union SUDD Cobas in Prato
My name is Mohammad Shahbaz.
I work as a textile worker.
And since when?
I have been in Italy since 2013.
My name is Mohammad and I work as a textile worker.
My name is Ghulam and I worked about
six to seven years as a textile worker in Pakistan.
After that I worked for three to three and a half years in Turkey.
After that I worked for a year in Greece.
Then I came to Italy.
I learnt to sew in my home country.
I have been working here for about eight years.
I've been doing this since I'm 12 years old.
I went to school and then I started working.
In Pakistan I worked in a small shop
where clothes are made.
After that I worked in a factory in Turkey.
According to the law, there you work 12 hours and have 2 days off.
Here in Italy you work 12 to 14 hours, if the employers wishes so.
Like at L'Alba.
It all looks legal on the outside, but on the inside it's all fake.
There are two types of contracts.
You get a contract as a cleaner,
but actually work as a sewing machine operator.
But you only get the lower wage as a cleaner.
We don't get the statutory 13th and 14th month's salary.
We don't even get holiday pay.
We have to work
20 minutes longer, unpaid,
not just one day, but every day.
Because you took a toilet break
Monthly you earn
1.000,
maximum 1,200.
This battle begins
in January 2025.
A group of workers who worked in this ironing shop
for brands of the upper- middle class companies,
i.e. brands like Patrizia Pepe, Grey Ven,
Canadian...
They pressed and packaged mainly coats.
They come to the union and tell us that they are being forced
to work under the collective agreement for cleaners.
They tell us that they are forced to work every Saturday,
to work for free.
That they have to work 20 minutes extra unpaid
when they go to the toilet during their shift
to make up for the toilet break.
In short, a whole series of very serious things.
Therefore, in January
the strike at L'Alba starts, and pretty quickly
an agreement is reached, with which all workers
are employed directly,
so these fake companies disappear.
All of them are now contracted directly by L'Alba,
all with permanent full-time contracts and the application
of the national collective labour agreement.
So finally they have the pay and conditions that they are entitled to.
We used to work a lot.
Sometimes six days, sometimes seven days, nine hours, ten hours.
Then we got in contact with SUDD Cobas.
Six or seven months ago.
After that we got our rights:
Eight hours of work, five days a week.
In the course of the summer, however the workers notice,
that some of the orders are not coming in.
Some machines disappear, and when they return from holidays
at the end of August, they find a notice on the door of the company
which states that due to a summer thunderstorm
all machines were damaged and the workers should stay at home
until the company has repaired the machines.
Then, after 3 or 4 months, he founded a new company,
a fake company, in Via Lecce.
He has closed the factory and opened two new factories.
He recruited the workers from Naples.
He promised them eight-hour contracts.
They came here for eight hours.
But then it was 12 hours and seven days.
You are being controlled and not allowed to talk to anyone.
Of course that seems strange to us.
We find this very suspicious, and we try to find out
what is going on. We realise
that the owners of the company opened two new plants
The one we are standing in front of now,
and another one here in the neighbourhood, also in Montemurlo.
For two fake legal reasons.
They are registered to the operators of L'Alba
and they have recruited people from other cities
to force them again to work 12 hours,
to live in houses managed by the foreman
with the same orders that were previously processed at L'Alba.
He has not paid our salaries and does not respond to anything.
This is not only the case with L'Alba,
but a general situation.
The employers close a factory
and open a new one under a new name.
"I'm making losses here, so I'm building a new factory."
Then he began to curtail the rights of the people.
Like us and others before, they work 12 hours a day.
They work seven days a week.
He has opened a new factory
and treats people like animals again.
That's the system.
But we are raising our voices, that this system is abolished.
Not only at L'Alba.
This system should be abolished in all factories.
Beginning of September
the strike begins, which is now ongoing
for more than a month and a half.
We demand that the work come back to L'Alba,
that these two fake companies,
that were only founded to reduce labour costs,
are closed, and of course
the responsibility of the main contractors is paramount.
And therefore they have to make sure that
these relocations stop and
that their orders are processed by workers with guaranteed rights.
Since August the company has stopped paying wages.
During the strike we also found out
that the company
since the signing of the agreement in January
had stopped paying the rent for the plant and was evicted.
And that is why we are currently in a situation of great confusion.
What we are trying to do and what we are working towards
is a plan that we have worked out and presented to a round table
which we opened with the province of Prato
and on which some of the main contractors participate.
We want a new company that is ready to employ
all workers from L'Alba to the same conditions
and that processes the orders of these contractors
and that therefore has the possibility,
to receive new orders
to expand its own production, by processing these orders
with the protection of the jobs of the L'Alba workers.
We like SUDD Cobas very much.
They help us a lot. Also our friends help us.
It's difficult when we're not getting paid.
You have to pay for rent, for food, you have to pay for everything.
It's difficult.
But SUDD Cobas and our friends are helping us.
The struggle of the workers of L'Alba
was the first fight that managed to bring the main conctractors
to a negotiating table about the supply chain.
And for us that is already an enormous result.
Of course we have to see it through
to the end, and the end means
the protection of the jobs and the rights of the workers at L'Alba.
But the fact that
the strength of these workers
has forced the contractors
to negotiate under the premise: "Hey, you have to take care of it.
It's your responsibility how your supply chains works
and you must do something to protect our jobs."
That's a huge thing, a historic result.
When I came to Italy, I had no contact with Italians.
because I worked in a Chinese company.
So I didn't work that much with Italians.
I only worked with Italians when I came into contact with SUDD Cobas.
These people have life and humanity in them.
Without any self-interest.
And they help us.
They are not only here with us during the day, but also at night.
We would like to thank everyone who have supported us.
We have reached a point,
where we were able to raise our voice for our rights.