"Italy's secret 'slave' labourers: Unskilled fruit pickers working for a pittance to supply tourists with wine – sometimes with fatal consequences", 23 Aug 2015

…[The death of Paola Clemente] has put the spotlight on the plight of southern Italy’s fruit pickers, with tens of thousands of poor, unskilled female labourers and migrants [work] in often illegal conditions…In Puglia… something akin to modern slavery is supplying the holidaymakers with the wine and food they enjoy at their dinner table. And many of the fruits of the region make their way as far as the British supermarkets…[L]ast week Ciro Grassi…who is understood to have recruited Ms Clemente and the other workers and took them to the fields to pick grapes, was placed under investigation by magistrates, suspected of homicide and failure to come to the aid of a sick person…Ms Clemente was working via an intermediary contractor for the Ortofrutta Meridionale company…The owner of Ortofrutta Meridionale was not available to talk when [contacted]…[U]nions say the existence of three or four layers of sub-contracting dissipates corporate responsibility and accounts for the doubts over the legality of the operation…[Also refers to Conserve Italia]