Cohort: ESOL 39

Topic of the thesis: The organised crime's presence in the labour market and the strategies employed by the clans to exploit the workers and to affect the economy, in particular with reference to illicit brokering (so-called caporalato)

Abstract: Since organized crime can strongly condition the economy of Italy and of all Europe, a lot of studies on criminal organizations explored the organized crime's impact on economic development and on the local market of the region where organized crime's businesses are settled, the structure of the mafia businesses, the analysis of financial profiles of the companies in which organised crime is involved and also the alteration mechanism of the competitive dynamics due to the presence of clans.
Despite this attention to the economic consequences of the clans' presence, at the moment there is a lack of studies focused on the role played by criminal organizations in the labour market, even if clans can affect its regulation at every moment.
Since there's a lack of studies on the way by which organised crime affects employment relations, it's necessary to bridge the gap by analyzing the influence of organised crime in the labour market and my research project aims at looking into all the ways – also different from illicit brokering - by which criminal organizations can condition the labour market. Therefore, this research project aims at interacting two different fields of research, namely the studies on organised crime with those on industrial relations, to produce a systematic, rigorous and in-depth knowledge about the modalities by which organised crime acts in the labour market and about the impacts of that actor's presence.
However, it's essential to underline that, despite the lack of studies about the presence of organised crime in the labour market, the specific phenomenon of illicit brokering received greater attention and, at present, it is the most known way by which organised crime influences employment relations.

Research interests: Labour market, labour exploitation, illegal hiring, illicit brokering, organized crime, mafia clans, workers' rights, health and safety at work, industrial relations, employment relations, occupational segregation, social and occupational stratification

Graduated from: Università degli Studi di Milano

Degrees obtained: BA - Political sciences (specialization in society, cultural and social change); MA - Administration and public policy (specialization in territorial autonomies)

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