It's still dark when the clock strikes 5:00 and the shutters on Via Nola, in San Gennaro Vesuviano, are all down. But the spotlight is already on a nondescript building, camouflaged among homes and small businesses.
The Carabinieri are about to enter a building that, floor after floor, reveals the double face of illegal labor that has marked the economic fabric of the Vesuvian municipalities for years: dormitory and factory, home and factory, life and exploitation in the same concrete block.
A complex of derelict housing and irregular work practices unfolds across three levels. The upper floors aren't simply apartments, but makeshift dormitories. The military counts 76 workers, crammed into dilapidated rooms with makeshift beds, bare-bones bathrooms, damp rooms, poor ventilation, and appalling sanitation.
Spaces originally intended as homes have been transformed into collective housing where the boundary between private life and work practically disappears, marked only by factory shifts.
In one of the rooms, among mattresses and makeshift furnishings, there's even an area set aside for Islamic worship: a detail that speaks to the presence of foreign labor and the often invisible dimension of these communities, who live and work on the margins, without protection, rights, and almost always without contracts.
The heart of the system, however, is on the ground floor: a completely illegal textile factory, covered by a roof that also lacks any permit. Here, garments are packaged, cut, and sewn. The machinery is powered by regular connections, but is located in a context that is completely noncompliant in terms of urban planning, construction, environmental protection, and workplace safety. The entire facility is supplied with water from a well dug haphazardly and without permits, further contributing to a picture of widespread illegality.
The operation, which began at dawn, was conducted by the Carabinieri of the San Gennaro Vesuviano station, with the support of the Roccarainola Forestry Carabinieri, the Labor Inspectorate, the local police, Enel staff, and the Local Health Authority.
Following the inspections, 11 people were reported at large, held responsible for various violations relating to construction, the environment, workplace safety, and, according to leaks, the use of illegal labor.
Phenomenon rooted in many Vesuvian municipalities
The Via Nola case is not an isolated incident, but rather part of a phenomenon rooted in many municipalities in the Vesuvius area, where the textile and manufacturing sectors, often entrusted to micro-enterprises and underground workshops, continue to thrive on irregularities, evading controls and regulations. Factory-like buildings, dormitory-like workshops, undignified housing conditions, and invisible workers: a geography of undeclared labor that extends from San Gennaro Vesuviano, San Giuseppe Vesuviano, Terzigno, Ottaviano, and other towns in the hinterland.
Investigations are continuing to reconstruct the production chain and understand for which clients the garments were made in the illegal factory.
A key step to uncover the economic "control room" of a system that relies on cost-cutting, labor exploitation, and a complete disregard for workers' safety and dignity to sustain its profit margins.
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