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Paper Short Abstract

This paper investigates how a Moroccan trade union, anti-mafia Sicilian farmers, a local administration, and a cooperative navigate Italian labor migration policies, strategically using digital platforms to promote their agendas.

Paper Abstract

This paper explores the establishment of a labor corridor designed to recruit Moroccan workers for two farms in Valledolmo, Sicily. Drawing on ongoing patchwork ethnography, the study highlights how non-state mediators navigate Italian labor migration policies and discourses, employing digital platforms to advance their agendas amidst the liberalization of Italy’s labor market.

The initiative originates from a Moroccan trade union, which views the new regulatory framework for labor corridors as a safer and more manageable pathway for North African workers to access Italy.

The union's efforts to combat cross-border labor exploitation aligns with the pressing demand for foreign labor in Sicily's depopulated inland areas, where agricultural production faces mounting challenges due to climate change and neoliberal globalization pressures. By integrating seasonal foreign workers into local labor and housing systems, the municipal administration seeks to establish an innovative, sustainable agricultural model that addresses informal hiring practices and labor exploitation.

Central to this mediation is a digital platform designed to match labor supply with demand. Initially promoted as a tool to combat gangmastering and labor mafias, the platform has been repurposed by Moroccan workers-to-be migrants as a strategic resource for circumventing systemic exploitation and bureaucratic inefficiencies in their journey to Italy.