Foreign workers who alleged exploitation while building the new U.S. consulate compound in Milan have begun signing agreements that will pay them an average of 45,000 euros (about $50,400) each, part of a record 31-million-euro (nearly $35 million) settlement with Alabama-based contractor Caddell Construction.
More than 60 laborers, most of them from India, signed the deals Wednesday at a Milan hotel, with the signings having started Tuesday. In total, 115 workers have signed over two days, and the procedure is set to continue next week. Prosecutors describe the settlement as the largest ever for labor exploitation in Europe.
Each worker signed a document agreeing not to discredit Caddell and not to disclose the individual payment amounts. The document states that the settlement is not an admission of liability. Payments are to be made within 30 days of signing.
Francesco Brigatti, the court-appointed administrator working to return the consulate construction site to legality, said the workers saw the potentially life-changing sums in writing for the first time at the signings. The highest payout reached nearly 90,000 euros (nearly $101,000). The amounts combine unpaid overtime, reimbursement for housing costs that were illegally deducted from their pay, and substantial damages personally sought by investigating Prosecutor Paolo Storari.
«The damages component alone amounts to 60–70% of the overtime total,» Brigatti said, far above the 10% to 30% that he described as more customary in such cases.
Dilip Ram, a 43-year-old mason from India who has worked at the Milan consulate site for more than two years, said the money would go a long way toward helping his family of five back home in the Indian state of Bihar.
«Things are better now than before … we get more rest now,» Ram said after signing the deal. «This has led to a lot of change. This settlement will be good. Because the workers had troubles, that's why this settlement has been applied.»
Prosecutors say workers were paid less than $2 an hour, were illegally docked money for housing, and were denied overtime for working up to 10 hours a day, six days a week. They also were allegedly subjected to threats and not given proper medical care when injured on the job. Most of the workers were from India, but others came from Nigeria, Kenya and Bangladesh.
Workers from India reported having to pay 5,000 euros (about $5,600) to recruiters to get the jobs, but the settlement did not directly address abuses in India, where prosecutors could not investigate, officials said.
The investigation against Caddell remains open pending the payouts, which are expected to be completed by February. Two managers under investigation for extortion and facilitating illegal immigration remain under house arrest.
Caddell's settlement includes about 11.2 million euros ($12.5 million) for Italy's social security coffers and workplace injury insurance. Under the deal, the workers are also receiving permits to work in Italy even off the Caddell site.
Caddell, a major contractor for U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide, said in June that it was cooperating fully with Italian authorities, reviewing its global subcontractors and consultancies for compliance with labor laws, and working with authorities to protect workers on the project.
«Caddell continues to cooperate in good faith with the appropriate authorities throughout this process, and we remain focused on the care and well-being of the people working on an important project,» the company said Wednesday.
The U.S. State Department has said it is investigating the allegations made by prosecutors and that U.S. law enforcement is working with Italian authorities. Last week, it added that it is following the case closely. «The U.S. government has zero tolerance for illegal activity,» it said.
In all, nearly 480 workers can expect payouts — some 300 still working on the site, another 100 elsewhere in Italy and the rest in their home countries.
«We have asked the Indian consulate to help,» said Adelio Riva, a labor lawyer working as a consultant for the prosecutor's office. «We are relying heavily on word-of-mouth because, as they say, 'follow the money.'»
The signings are being followed by three construction worker trade unions that are assisting the workers. Trifone Radogna, an organizer for the Feneal Uil construction workers union, described the outcome as a bittersweet coda to a saga that began when unions were denied access to workers at the consulate job site, erroneously citing diplomatic status. He said the union had never been barred from informing workers of their rights on job sites in Milan, which has undergone a construction boom over the last two decades.
«We have never encountered a labor-exploitation system on this scale,» Radogna said. «Here workers' dignity was lost: they found themselves without accommodation, without meals, and they were already starting at a disadvantage because they had to pay 5,000 euros before leaving.»