American construction giant Caddell Construction and a Turkish-born manager face investigation. It follows allegations by Indian labourers on the new US Consulate building site that they earned poverty-level wages and paid hundreds of thousands of rupees simply to secure the job.
Milan’s chief prosecutor Paolo Storari has ordered an emergency judicial review of American construction company Caddell Construction over the alleged exploitation of Indian migrant workers employed on the construction of the new United States Consulate in the city’s Piazzale Accursio district, judicial sources said on Friday.
According to the investigation, the Indian workers were paid wages significantly below the poverty line, with the company allegedly taking deliberate advantage of their economic vulnerability and need for employment. A judicial decree states that, in addition to receiving minimal pay, the workers were subjected to repeated violations of Italian regulations on working hours, rest periods and days off.
The alleged exploitation did not begin on the building site. Workers are said to have been required to pay approximately 500,000 rupees each — equivalent to roughly €5,500 — to a New Delhi-based recruitment company that placed them with Caddell Construction in order to obtain the work in the first place. The arrangement meant workers arrived in Italy already carrying a significant debt burden incurred simply to secure employment.
The prosecutor’s findings further allege that workers who resisted or complained were threatened with dismissal and deportation back to India. This coercive dynamic, investigators say, was used systematically to enforce compliance with the exploitative conditions.
Caddell Construction and a Turkish-born manager are both under investigation. The emergency judicial review — a decreto ordering immediate scrutiny of the company’s operations and practices — signals the seriousness with which the Milan prosecutor’s office is treating the case.
