Caporalato, a Dior company in receivership

The Milan court orders against fashion and luxury companies 'guilty' of not having adequately controlled their chain of suppliers continue to pour in. Who in turn would have relied on sub-suppliers with irregular workers, very low wages, and working hours and conditions far from legal. Mainly Chinese factories, a few kilometres from Milan.

The Autonomous Measures of Prevention Section of the Court of Milan has placed Manufactures Dior, a company that belongs to the Italian branch of the Christian Dior maison, one of the flagship brands of the Lvmh luxury group, in receivership. The company oversees the manufacture of the French brand's travel goods, bags and leather goods, with production hubs in Scandicci (Florence) and Fosso (Venice). This is the same measure issued in recent months against Alviero Martini Spa and Giorgio Armani Operations.

The measure - which provides for the appointment of a judicial administrator who, in office for a maximum of 12 months, will control the supply chain and possibly terminate agreements with companies that violate the law - is based on the findings of an investigation by the Carabinieri of the Labour Inspectorate Unit, coordinated by prosecutors Paolo Storari and Luisa Bollone, according to which the fashion house would entrust 'through an in-house company created ad hoc for the creation, production and sale of the fashion and accessories collections, through a supply contract, the entire production of part of the 2024 collection of bags and accessories to third companies, with complete outsourcing of production processes'. As in the case of Armani and Alviero Martini, the supplier company of Manufactures Dior would not in reality have adequate production capacity and, consequently, would in turn have entrusted the orders to 'Chinese factories, which manage to cut costs by resorting to the use of irregular and clandestine labour in exploitative conditions'.

In detail, the carabinieri of the labour inspection unit in Milan detected a series of irregularities in a contracting company in Opera, in the Milan area, run by a Chinese woman. There, last March, the carabinieri found 23 workers sleeping in bedrooms adjacent to the workshops and found both that the employees were not using protective equipment and that some safety devices on the machinery had been removed or deactivated. Such removal, according to the investigators, would have allowed an 'increase in the operator's production capacity at the expense of their own safety'.

The issue of the exploitation of workers by small companies in the made-in-Italy fashion supply chain that, in turn, work for major brands (luxury and otherwise) that they do not adequately control has been in the investigative focus of Milan investigators for months now. As has already been alleged against other companies, the issue is that of the brands' failure to control the sub-supply chain. In this regard, a round table was set up at the Prefecture of Milan, which was attended on 8 May by the President of the Court of Milan, Fabio Roia, Prefect Claudio Sgaraglia, and Prosecutor Alessandra Dolci. The aim is to 'identify good practices of a preventive nature' against the 'caporalato' (forced labour) ascertained by the investigations of public prosecutor Paolo Storari in the 'supply chain' of 'two companies operating in the sector' of luxury goods, Alviero Martini and Giorgio Armani Operations, a phenomenon that is, however, also considered to be widespread in other realities. In addition to the institutions, the meeting was attended by representatives of the entire fashion and craft sector, the Labour Inspectorate and the Milan Polytechnic.