The chapter concentrates on mafia violence used for anti-Union purposes, a form of violence used to contain or suffocate worker representation. In particular, it concentrates on employment relations in the construction sector in Campania during the years spanning the Eighties and the Nineties. The chapter explores the operating mechanisms of mafia labour market regulation by comparing two life histories. In particular, by comparing the memories of and accounts provided by two opposing witnesses: on the one hand, a trade union representative in the construction sector who was the victim of a violent intimidation that accumulated as a consequence of his activity as a unionist; on the other, one of his assailants, a member of the Clan dei Casalesi who later turned state’s witness. The fact that their biographies are so closely related, having evolved in two small municipalities only a few kilometres away from one another and thus unfolding within the same regional, social and economic context, makes of them an extremely interesting and detailed portrait of daily life and the social contexts within which our witnesses constructed the sense of their actions. All of this allows to reflect on various factors: the reasons underlying engagement, be it activism as part of a trade union or membership in a criminal organisation; the day-to-day workings of the informal and illegal mechanisms that regulate social and economic relations in these contexts; the problematic nature of economic practices commonly referred to as “mafia-related”, which provide the basis for the formation of a violent entrepreneurial elite within free-market economies ; the ways in which (implicit or explicit) violence is turned to as an operational mechanism of the Camorra’s regulatory approach to managing the workforce.

Violence and regulation of the labour market in the construction sector. A life history approach

Martone Vittorio
2019-01-01

Abstract

The chapter concentrates on mafia violence used for anti-Union purposes, a form of violence used to contain or suffocate worker representation. In particular, it concentrates on employment relations in the construction sector in Campania during the years spanning the Eighties and the Nineties. The chapter explores the operating mechanisms of mafia labour market regulation by comparing two life histories. In particular, by comparing the memories of and accounts provided by two opposing witnesses: on the one hand, a trade union representative in the construction sector who was the victim of a violent intimidation that accumulated as a consequence of his activity as a unionist; on the other, one of his assailants, a member of the Clan dei Casalesi who later turned state’s witness. The fact that their biographies are so closely related, having evolved in two small municipalities only a few kilometres away from one another and thus unfolding within the same regional, social and economic context, makes of them an extremely interesting and detailed portrait of daily life and the social contexts within which our witnesses constructed the sense of their actions. All of this allows to reflect on various factors: the reasons underlying engagement, be it activism as part of a trade union or membership in a criminal organisation; the day-to-day workings of the informal and illegal mechanisms that regulate social and economic relations in these contexts; the problematic nature of economic practices commonly referred to as “mafia-related”, which provide the basis for the formation of a violent entrepreneurial elite within free-market economies ; the ways in which (implicit or explicit) violence is turned to as an operational mechanism of the Camorra’s regulatory approach to managing the workforce.
2019
Mafia Violence Political, Symbolic, and Economic Forms of Violence in Camorra Clans
Routledge
Routledge Advances in Criminology
195
215
978-1-138-60677-7
Violence, Italian Mafias, Local Development, Trade Unions
Martone Vittorio
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/1690302
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