Bangladeshi workers on the edge of the labour regime in Italian Fincantieri shipyards

Abstract

Based on ethnographic research and interviews conducted over 2 years (2021–2023), mainly with Bangladeshi workers, community leaders, local NGO staff and trade union representatives in two Italian shipyards in Fincantieri, this paper focuses on the interrelations of labour process, social reproduction and migration regime. Our study analyses how the articulations of these three spheres in a specific locality shape social relations within and outside the workplace. First, we focus on the analysis of the labour process organised through subcontracting firms and informal intermediaries that select workers and control them inside the workplace. Second, we show how the social reproduction of the Bangladeshi workers in the private sphere is influenced and controlled by their ‘ethnic community’. Third, we highlight the impact of Italian migration and labour policy on workers' behaviour. The intertwined nature of the mechanisms of these processes reflects the fact that workplaces are not a detached part of society. Rather, they are embedded in general political rules and involve the time and space of social reproduction where the labour force reproduces itself.