The world in a shipyard: subcontracting, migrant labour and union strategies in a globalised workplace

  This research investigates working conditions in the Italian shipbuilding industry, a sector that has been largely overlooked in recent years despite its economic significance. The study focuses on Fincantieri, a State-owned company listed on the stock exchange, which operates eight shipyards in Italy and several others in Romania, Norway, the US, Vietnam, and Brazil. It examines in depth the case of Monfalcone, home to the company’s largest shipyard, while continually broadening the analysis to include other Fincantieri’s plants. The research is based on a combination of various qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, focus groups, participant observation, archival research, and protest event analysis.  After providing a brief overview of the restructuring of the Italian shipbuilding industry in the global context and the peculiar characteristics of Monfalcone (the factory-city relationship, the politicisation of both production and urban transformations etc.), this thesis addresses four research questions. First, it examines the functioning of the Fincantieri model, investigating the new profile of direct labour, the complexity of the subcontracting chain, the contractual fragmentation, and the all-encompassing wage regime. Second, the research analysis the role of ethnicization processes in shaping working conditions, deciphering the various factor contributing to segmentation. Third, it explores how both traditional and grassroots unions in Monfalcone confront the dual challenge posed by outsourcing and migrant labour. The study also delves into the role of non-union actors, including a civil society organisation and a worker service centre managed by an individual of Bangladeshi origin. Fourth, the research compares the strategies employed by Fiom across various Italian shipyards to defend, represent and/or organise outsourced and migrant workers, reconstructing the diverse tools of intervention.  Finally, the thesis offers a brief exploration of how this research on shipbuilding not only addresses a gap in sector-specific knowledge but also provide valuable insights into phenomena such as the connection between outsourcing and the ethnicization of labour, the interplay between agency and constraints in workers’ mobility trajectories, union renewal, the politicisation of labour issues, and the potential role of the state in promoting better working conditions.