Ditching the Fear

Since 2008 in northern Italy, unusual things have been happening. Companies, the political class and the media are using the onset of the crisis to further undermine workers' rights, which have been, up until now, crushed. On the other side, a lively and strong resistance has been forming at the bottom end of the wage scale.

Of all people, it is the precarious and largely migrant workers in the logistics sector who have, through solidarity and effective organising, been successful in overcoming their isolation and degrading working conditions. A struggle that hasn't just changed their working conditions but has changed their whole lives.

"I'd been talking with the girls since 2012 because I came to know about this union called SI Cobas. But there has been a lot of fear because they put you in a condition of servility, you are enslaved to the point that you can't even say 'a'. You don't say anything, you work item after item after item... So I'd been speaking with the girls since 2012 and I don't know how it happened. It was good luck." (Yoox Worker, from the film)