Translated by Roberta Buiani and Enda Brophy
Abstract: This essay reports on the temporary and unpaid forms of labour around which the 2015 World’s Fair (Expo 2015) in Milan is organized and upon which it depends. The collective agreement supporting Expo 2015 is especially significant, the paper contends, in that it has been seized upon by the government of Matteo Renzi as a blueprint for the future of labour relations in Italy. Expo 2015 ushers in the institutionalization of unpaid work in the crisis-stricken Italian economy—a transformation approved by the major Italian trade unions that signed off on the collective agreement, but forcefully opposed by social movements who have decried the expansion of unpaid work permitted by the contract.
From Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique: Vol 13, No 2 (2015) > Unpaid Work, Creative Industries, and Higher Education.
See also on Academia.edu
See also on Academia.edu
1. “Why the Hell Are You Asking Me to Volunteer?”
Take 18,500 young people
and student volunteers, all working for free, while the judiciary
investigates a million dollar bribery scheme, prosecuting and
arresting entrepreneurs and corrupt lobbyists. Welcome to the Milan
Expo.2 Throw in a communications team which rou- tinely turns to the
web to ask for “advice” on how to improve the event (one that
senior figures in the Italian government maintain will contribute to
the country’s economic recovery). Add to this the most brilliant
and critical activist network in Italy and you’ll get a glimpse of
what the future has in store for the precariat in this country:
unpaid work.
These are the elements that, on May 21, 2014, combined
to produce what we could rightly call a communicative “epic fail.”
For the first time since the confederal trade unions and Expo Ltd.
signed a collective agreement in July of 2013, Expo 2015 organizers
clumsily sought to engage the internet in the discussion of a topic
that—like the unspeakable (in Latin, nefas) in Greek tragedy—makes everybody feel uncomfortable and thus usually remains
unspoken. Launched by the event’s organizers, the hashtag #AskExpo
was soon flooded by the messages of hundreds of people demanding
explanations regarding a collective agreement that, for the first
time in the history of Italian labour law, enshrines free work for 90
percent of those involved in the production of what Premier Matteo
Renzi sees as a “source of pride” for the country (Expo 2015).
Meanwhile, only 835 people among the thousands of interns, ap-
prentices, and limited contract workers will be “hired” for a
period of 7 to 12 months.
“Why is #Expo2015—an event that
was supposed to create jobs—depending on volunteers?” wrote
@TwashWish. “This public event supported by public funds is 90%
dependent on unpaid work. Why are the private companies the ones
making money?” asked @ufo_inthesky. It was impossible not to draw
connections between all of this free labour and the arrests of a
bid-rigging racket of contractors (the so-called “Cupola degli
appalti”) carried out on May 8, 2014. Among others, those detained
included the General Manager of Expo 2015 Ltd., Angelo Paris, and a
number of entrepreneurs and lobbyists recruited from the ranks of the
Tangentopoli scandal of the early 1990s.4 “With all the money
you’ve gotten (some of it mysteri- ously vanished), why the hell
are you asking me to volunteer?” tweeted @divexdj.
