Creating a New Type of Labour Law Enforcer: The Law Technician in Prato
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12129 |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 45, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 2018
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 538±62
Creating a New Type of Labour Law Enforcer:
The Law Technician in Prato
Louise Munkholm*
The article investigates, from a socio-legal perspective, the creation of
a new type of local labour law enforcer, known as the `law technician',
in the Northern Italian city of Prato. Since the 1980s, Prato has
attracted thousands of Chinese migrants who run small workshops in
the local garment industry, most of which are characterized by low
compliance with Italian labour law. To combat the gaps in workers'
protection, a new approach to law enforcement is emerging. Compared
to traditional enforcement officials, law technicians represent a
proactive approach; they have no sanctioning power and they apply
multicultural, multilingual, and multidisciplinary instruments when
promoting the protection of workers. Drawing on interview and
documentary data gathered during two rounds of fieldwork in Prato in
2014 and 2015, the article contributes with empirical knowledge to
advance theory building about the legal cultural transformation of law
enforcement in contemporary societies.
INTRODUCTION
The article investigates, from a socio-legal perspective, the creation of a new
type of local labour law enforcer, known as the `law technician', in the
Northern Italian city of Prato. Prato is famous across Europe for its fashion
and textile production. Not only have Pratese textiles been manufactured by
538
*Centre for International and Transnational Tendencies in Law, Aarhus
School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Bartholins Alle
Â
16, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark
lmu@law.au.dk
The article draws in part on data gathered for my PhD project, funded by Roskilde Uni-
versity. Special thanks to Lisbet Christoffersen and Olivier Rubin for great supervision, and
to Ilaria Mundula for research assistance. I am also grateful to all interviewees in Prato and
Florence for their participation. The project is fully elaborated in L. Munkholm,
Reinventing Labour Law Enforcement: A Socio-Legal Analysis (Hart, forthcoming).
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some of the biggest international brands in pre
Ãt-a-porter and garment-
making industries,
1
but Prato has also formed the basis for a revival of
theories concerning industrial districts
2
and inspired theory building on the
division of Italy into `Three Italies'.
3
Since the 1980s, the small city of
191,424 inhabitants has also been renowned as a host society for one of the
biggest Chinese communities in Europe. Over the course of just 30 years, the
Chinese population in Prato has grown from around 30 to more than 30,000.
4
Almost all the Chinese in Prato are employed on short-term contracts in one
of the 3,200 local Chinese-owned garment workshops.
5
The vast majority of these Chinese workplaces do not comply with central
elements of Italian labour law: employment is often based on unwritten
agreements between employer and worker, the maximum limit on working
hours is not respected, and the health and safety conditions of the workplaces
do not live up to the minimum standards required by Italian labour law.
6
In
2014, the local authorities in Prato gave the Chinese firms an ultimatum: to
choose between entering into a process of gradual legalization of all
activities, or to close down.
7
The ultimatum requires not only action from the
Chinese in Prato, but also from the local law enforcers as control visits by the
various inspection agencies have been intensified and supplemented with the
consultancy efforts of law technicians aimed at informing the Chinese in
Prato better about how to comply with existing law.
Whereas the Chinese community in Prato is well-researched, there are
few studies on the role of local enforcers in dealing with the problems of
non-compliance with law. The topics covered in existing research range
from defining the socio-economic characteristics of Chinese migrants,
539
1 Confindustria Prato, `Evolution of the Prato Textile District' (2014), at
www.ui.prato.it/unionedigitale/v2/english/presentazionedistrettoinglese.pdf>.
2 See, for example, G . Becattin i, `The Mars hallian in dustrial d istrict as a
socioeconomic notion' in Industrial Districts and Inter-firm Co-operation, eds. F.
Pyke, G. Beccatini, and W. Sengenberger (1980); M.J. Piore and C.F. Sabel, The
Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity (1984) ch. 8.
3 See, for example, R.A. Boschma, `Social Capital and Regional Development: An
Empirical Analysis of the Third Italy' in Learning from Clusters: A Critical
Assessment from an Economic-Geographical Perspective, eds. R.A. Boschma and
R.C. Kloosterman (2005) ch. 7.
4 L. Baldassar et al., `Chinese Migration to the New Europe: The Case of Prato' in
Chinese Migration to Europe, Prato, Italy, and Beyond, eds. L. Baldassar et al.
(2015) 29.
5 S.C. Benvenuti et al., Prato: Il ruolo economico della comunita
Ácinese (2013) 45.
6 id.
7 In 2014, a `Pact for Safe Work' was adopted by the local government of Prato. The
Pact invites Chinese firms to enter a process of emersione, that is, a process of
gradually upgrading irregular activities to regular activities. The Pact is available
online, see .
italiano.pdf>. To view the flyer that was distributed to promote the Pact, see
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including the organization and economic activities of the Chinese firms
8
and
consumption habits,
9
to the growing second generation
10
as well as the use
of modern technologies to shape transnational ties.
11
Media attention has
been more sporadic than consistent in its coverage and appears to be more
interested in the hunt for a sensationalist story about `the Chinese are
coming' than in clarifying what is actually done on the ground by local
institutions to combat the problems.
12
The article offers new knowledge to this body of literature. It investigates
how the law technician communicates central laws regarding the protection
of workers to Chinese employees and workers in Prato. Like traditional law
enforcers, such as labour inspectorates, law technicians seek on a daily basis
to turn `law in the books' into `law in action' by establishing a dialogue with
the users of law about legal demands. Law technicians then become
privileged witnesses to the challenges to employers and workers in under-
standing, implementing, and referring to labour law in their daily practices.
But in contrast to traditional enforcers, law technicians do not have a man-
date to sanction deviant behaviour. They are not government officials who
`employ the coercive powers of the state'.
13
Rather, law technicians offer
consultancy on how a given firm can upgrade activities before government
officials pay their next visit. In addition, law technicians are specifically
trained to visit foreign firms ± a training that involves a wide variety of
disciplines, including economics, linguistics, cultural studies, and law. Thus,
law technicians represent a new and proactive approach to law enforcement
characterized by different tools and motivations.
14
540
8 G. Dei Ottati, `Italian Industrial Districts and the Dual Chinese Challenge' in Living
Outside the Walls: The Chinese in Prato, ed. G. Johanson et al. (2009) ch. 2; G. Dei
Ottati and D.B. Cologna, 'The Chinese in Prato and the Current Outlook on the
Chinese-Italian Experience' in Baldassar et al. (eds.), op. cit., n. 4, ch. 2.
9 F. Berti et al. (eds.), Vendere e comprare. Processi Di Mobilita
ÁDei Cinesi a Prato
(2013).
10 A. Marsden, `Second-Generation Chinese and New Processes of Social Integration
in Italy' in Baldassar et al. (eds.), op. cit., n. 4, ch. 6.
11 G. Johanson and A.M. Fladrich, `Ties that Bond: Mobile Phones and the Chinese in
Prato' in Baldassar et al. (eds.), id., ch. 10.
12 See, for example, R. Donadio, `Chinese Remake the ``Made in Italy''Fashion Label'
New York Times, 12 September 2010; J.P. Cardenal and H. Arajo, China's Silent
Army. The Pioneers, Traders, Fixers and Workers Who Are Remaking the World in
Beijing's Image (2013).
13 R. Kagan, `Regulators and Regulatory Processes' in The Blackwell Companion to
Law and Society, ed. A. Sarat (2004) ch. 12.
14 For a recent study of enforcement trends, see M. Quinlan and P. Sheldon, `The
Enforcement of Minimum Labour Standards in an Era of Neo-Liberal Globalisation:
An Overview' (2011) 22 Economic and Labour Relations Rev. 5. Quinlan and
Sheldon do emphasize that there has been a shift over the past 15 years to responsive
enforcement which is planned and targeted, although reactivity still occurs. The case
of Prato is illustrative of this development.
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The article is divided into four parts. Part I briefly introduces the socio-
legal perspective applied in the study with emphasis on the relevance of
understanding law enforcement as a dynamic culture under transformation.
To this end, the article combines the legal cultural approach developed by the
American legal sociologist Lawrence M. Friedman with the legal develop-
mental model formulated by the American sociologists of law, Philippe
Nonet and Philip Selznick. Part II briefly introduces the case of Prato,
including the data that the study builds on. Part III analyses the creation and
role of the law technicians, including a) the tools they use and b) the
experiences of law technicians so far. Part IV looks at the law technician at
work, and Part V concludes the article and discusses the analytical findings in
relation to broader debates on law enforcement in the twenty-first century.
I. LAW ENFORCEMENT AS A CULTURE UNDER
TRANSFORMATION
The study pursues a sociological understanding of the operational aspects of
law. A broad range of factors influences the effects of law, including how
and why law is formulated in the first place (known as the genetic analysis of
law) as well as how law is used and interpreted by various actors, including
authorities and citizens (known as the operational analysis of law).
15
As
expressed by Gessner et al., `norms and institutions are bound to the history
and customs of the societies in which they claim validity.'
16
Put differently,
law is embedded in the general culture of society. This relationship between
law and culture has long been a concern of sociology of law.
17
Still, culture
is `a vague concept' and so is the concept of legal culture.
18
Many different
interpretations are given to the concept.
19
The article takes its point of
departure in the legal-sociological interpretation where legal culture is seen
as the `sum total of conditions that impinge upon the implementation
processes of law'.
20
Such conditions comprise the way law is formulated in
the first place; the procedural methods employed by institutions; the interests
and professional qualities of legal and non-legal actors; and the general
541
15 B.L. Kristiansen and J. Dalberg-Larsen, Lovene og livet (2014, 6th edn.) 49.
16 V. Gessner et al., `Foreword' in European Legal Cultures, eds. V. Gessner et al.
(1996) xvii±xviii.
17 D. Nelken, `Thinking About Legal Culture' (2014) 1 Asian J. of Law and Society
255.
18 M. Van Hoecke, Law as Communication (2002) 56.
19 One of the central criticisms of legal culture as an analytical concept was formulated
by Roger Cotterrell in his book Law, Culture and Society ± Legal Ideas in the
Mirror of Social Theory (2006). A recent contribution to this debate is provided by
R. Banakar, Normativity in Legal Sociology: Methodological Reflections on Law
and Regulation in Late Modernity (2015).
20 Gessner et al. (eds.), op. cit., n. 16, p. xvii.
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consciousness of the public.
21
In sum, these tangible and abstract elements of
law form a legal culture that impinges on the way law is formulated, applied,
and enforced in a given society.
This broad understanding of legal culture is central in the work of
Lawrence M. Friedman who defines legal culture as `ideas, values, expecta-
tions and attitudes towards law and legal institutions which some public or
some part of the public holds'.
22
Friedman stresses that `what is studied
under the heading of ``legal culture'' is by definition a formative element of
living law rather than book law.'
23
Furthermore, Friedman emphasizes
patterns of behaviour and practices as signs of how legal cultures are
institutionalized.
24
In essence, legal cultures manifest themselves in the way
different actors or groups of actors practice law:
Very often, when people speak of the legal system (. . .) they are speaking of
concrete activities going on about them. They are thinking of lawyers and
judges at work, legislators passing laws, administrative agencies making rules
and settling disputes. One way to look at the legal system is as a process ±
what legal institutions do, and how they do it.
25
Here, Friedman suggests that we see law as, among other things, a process in
which law is practiced by different legal institutions. Indeed, Friedman
determines the `values, ideologies, and principles of lawyers, judges, and
others who work within the magic circle of the legal system' as `a specially
important kind of group legal culture' because the behaviour and attitudes of
legal professionals have a great effect on the patterns of demands on the
legal system.
26
Law enforcers represent a group of legal professionals working within
`the magic circle' of the legal system. Law enforcement can be seen as a
process through which professionals `interact directly with citizens on behalf
of the state'.
27
Actors involved in this process are, first of all, governmental
officials who `demand entry into factories and company offices, pore
through their records, and require firms to conduct studies, compile reports,
and disclose information to the public.'
28
Governmental officials, however,
are not the only actors on the street who contribute to law enforcement; non-
governmental organizations and private consultants also play a role.
29
What
542
21 id.
22 L.M. Friedman, `The Concept of Legal Culture: A Reply' in Comparing Legal
Cultures, ed. D. Nelken (1997) 34.
23 id., p. 36.
24 L.M. Friedman, The Legal System: A Social Science Perspective (1975) 193.
25 L.M. Friedman, `Legal Culture and Social Development' (1969) 4 Law & Society
Rev. 33 (emphasis added).
26 Friedman, op. cit., n. 24, p. 194.
27 M. Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services
(1980) 3±4.
28 Kagan, op. cit., n. 13.
29 Kristiansen and Dalberg-Larsen, op. cit., n. 15, pp. 266±8.
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these actors have in common is that they are `street-level bureaucrats'.
30
They contribute to the enforcement of law as they proactively seek to
establish dialogue with citizens about law and legal behaviour. Unlike
judges, who only interact with citizens if they are brought before them in
court, street-level bureaucrats turn to citizens to communicate the norms of
law, including how to practice these norms. They are `enforcement agents'
who undertake controls as an early-warning system of market failures, or the
ability of market participants to self-regulate.
31
The controls and subsequent
legal penalties for harmful behaviour have a preventive purpose and are
often described as `protective regulation' or `social regulation' designed to
prevent physical harms, deficiencies, and injustices.
32
When conceptualizing law enforcement as a legal culture, the research
aim is to analyse ideas, values, expectations, and attitudes towards law
among law enforcers with special attention paid to how these manifest in
specific concrete actions taken to enforce law. As the article is not only
concerned with the legal culture of law enforcers in its own right, but the
transformation process of this professional legal culture, the concept of legal
culture is combined with a developmental perspective on law. To meet this
need, the article applies the socio-legal theory on legal development formu-
lated by Philippe Nonet and Philip Selznick. Nonet and Selznick distinguish
between three modalities of law in society: law as the servant of repressive
political power; law as a differentiated institution capable of taming
repression and protecting its own integrity (also known as the `Rule-of-Law'
model); and law as a facilitator of response to social needs and aspirations by
the means of purpose-orientation, civic participation, and institutional
redesign.
33
These three modalities are labelled repressive,autonomous, and
responsive law, respectively. Nonet and Selznick stress that no complex
legal order, or sector of it, ever forms a fully coherent system. Accordingly,
any given legal order is likely to have a mixed nature that incorporates
aspects of all three types of law; however, its basic posture may nevertheless
approximate to one type more closely than the others. Inquiry then proceeds
by determining `to what extent and under what conditions the attributes of
one or another type occur'.
34
The model of Nonet and Selznick stresses the
need to address institutional actors as a vital ingredient of a specific kind of
social order that can be either low-risk or high-risk. It is low-risk when
separating law and politics and high-risk when encouraging participation and
critique.
35
Their model is then built upon a specific interest in institutions:
`how they work, the forces that impinge upon them, their limits and
543
30 Lipsky, op. cit., n. 27.
31 Kagan, op. cit., n. 13.
32 id.
33 P. Nonet and P. Selznick, Law and Society in Transition. Toward Responsive Law
(2001, 2nd edn.) 14.
34 id., p. 17.
35 id., p. 6.
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potentialities.'
36
It consequently provides a typology for analysing and
interpreting how law enforcers work, including how and why they respond to
challenges of non-compliance with law. In other words, the typology can be
used to identify and interpret evolving attitudes and expectations towards
law, and thereby the transformation of legal cultures.
II. THE CASE OF PRATO
Prato is a small city 20 kilometres from Florence and belongs to Third Italy,
where craft skills and industrial growth have been outstanding.
37
During the
1950s and 1960s, Prato grew to become Europe's most important textiles and
fashion centre.
38
The local textile production sector attracted thousands of
workers, first from the countryside and the small towns around Tuscany, and
then, during the 1970s, from southern Italy.
39
During the 1980s, non-EU
immigration represented a new migratory flux in Prato as in the rest of Italy,
with Moroccans and Senegalese forming the two major immigrant groups,
followed by Albanians, Romanians, and Chinese.
40
In 1989, 38 Chinese
migrants were registered as residents in Prato; just a few years later, in 1991,
this had risen to 1,009, and in 2006 to 10,080.
41
As of 31 December 2013,
there were 16,182 Chinese-born residents in the city of Prato.
42
These figures
tend to be underestimates, however, as migrants can easily fall in and out of
`legal' status because stay permits are contingent on employment, which
provides permanent positions for only a few.
43
A recent report puts the actual
Chinese population in Prato between 30,000 and 40,000.
44
In total, Prato
hosts a population of 191,424 inhabitants.
45
In other words, approximately
one of ten people in Prato is Chinese.
544
36 id., p. 1.
37 Third Italy is distinguished from First Italy (the `industrial heartland' in the north-
west) and Second Italy (the `backward' south) by a particular form of industrial-
ization that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s based on the local networks of small
and medium-sized enterprises that specialized in craft-based industries as well as
high levels of institutional trust and public participation in local policy making
(Boschma, op. cit., n. 3).
38 T. Denison et al., `The Chinese Community in Prato' in Johanson et al. (eds.), op.
cit., n. 8, p. 4.
39 id.
40 F. Bertagna and M. Maccari-Clayton, `Italy' in The Encyclopedia of European
Migration and Minorities: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present, eds. K.J.
Bade et al. (2011) 113.
41 Denison et al., op. cit., n. 38, p. 11.
42 Baldassar et al., op. cit., n. 4, p. 29.
43 id.
44 K. Latham and B. Wu, `Chinese Immigration into the EU: New Trends, Dynamics
and Implications' (2013) ECRAN paper no. 7, 35.
45 Baldassar et al., op. cit., n. 4, p. 29.
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From the 1980s until the mid-1990s, almost all Chinese migrants who
arrived in Italy became integrated into a form of ethnic economy based on a
`model of upward social mobility', which is the intent to establish one's own
small business after earning the money from contract-based work.
46
Most
Chinese firms during this period were subcontractors of Italian purchasers in
the clothing industry who could see the capacity of Chinese firms to take
new orders and execute them rapidly, thus reducing production costs for the
final firms.
47
During the second half of the 1990s, Chinese activities spread
from garments into other manufacturing sectors, such as shoemaking and the
production of furniture and home appliances.
48
Since the turn of the millen-
nium, the Chinese have also been active in commercial sectors related to
wholesale and retail businesses based on the import and sale of Chinese
goods.
49
Another important transformation has been the passage of a
significant number of Chinese employers from subcontractors to purchasers
in the fast-fashion industry.
50
Most Chinese fir ms employ Chines e workers hired th rough family
networks. Various scholars refer to these strong social ties among Chinese as
guanxi.Guanxi can be loosely translated as `social connections', `relation-
ships' or `social networks'.
51
It is a phenomenon that lies at the heart of almost
every realm of life not only in mainland China but also in overseas Chinese
communities.
52
It is argued that guanxi influences employment processes and
business transactions as guanxi networks are used at the individual level to find
employment in urban areas of China
53
as well as within Chinese communities
scattered across Asia, North America, and Europe.
54
Both employment and
business relationships are often based on informal links, mutual trust, and
mutual commitment based on reciprocity rather than hierarchy.
55
545
46 A. Ceccagno, `The Chinese in Italy at a Crossroad: The Economic Crisis' in Beyond
Chinatown. New Chinese Migration and the Global Expansion of China, ed. M.
Thun (2007) 117.
47 F. Bracci, `The ``Chinese Deviant'': Building the Perfect Enemy in a Local Arena'
in Baldassar et al. (eds.), op. cit., n. 4, p. 105.
48 Ceccagno, op. cit., n. 46.
49 id., p. 118.
50 For an indepth analysis of this transition, see G. Dei Ottati, `A transnational fast
fashion industrial district: an analysis of the Chinese businesses in Prato' (2014) 38
Cambridge J. of Economics 1247.
51 T. Gold et al., `An Introduction to the Study of Guanxi' in Social Connections in
China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi, eds. T. Gold et al.
(2002) 3±4.
52 id.
53 Y. Bian, `Institutional holes and Job Mobility Processes: Guanxi Mechanisms in
China's Emergent Labor Markets' in Gold et al. (eds.), op. cit., n. 51.
54 M. Blanchard and E. Castagnone, `Becoming Laoban [Boss]: Questioning the
Peculiarity o f Profession al Trajectori es and Strategi es of Chinese Mi grant
Entrepreneurs' in Baldassar et al. (eds.), op. cit., n. 4, ch. 15.
55 Bian, op. cit., n. 53, pp. 128±33; W. Chung and G.G. Hamilton, `Social Logic as
Business Logic: Guanxi, Trustworthiness, and the Embeddedness of Chinese
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The Prato Chamber of Commerce estimates that there are 4,830 Chinese-
owned firms in Prato compared to a total of 29,067 companies.
56
The vast
majority of the Chinese activities are concentrated in the clothing industry
(3,200 firms) and much less in the traditional textile industry of Prato (264
firms).
57
These figures indicate that the Chinese firms are not in direct
competition with the Italian firms ± a fact that has been stressed by various
observers, including Baldassar et al., who emphasize that, for Prato, `the
Chinese in China are a greater economic threat than the Chinese in town'.
58
Perhaps, therefore, the presence of the Chinese was not much debated during
the 1980s and 1990s in Prato.
59
However, two central events have changed
that. First of all, the global financial crisis, which hit hard in Italy in 2008±
2009 with a decline in exports and a general decline in domestic demand in
2012±2013.
60
After years of framing Chinese migrants as an opportunity for
Prato, a harsh discourse evolved in public debates blaming Chinese firm-
owners and workers for the economic recession, the loss of local jobs, and
the closing of local Italian companies.
61
Secondly, an incident on 1
December 2013 where seven Chinese workers burned to death in a workshop
with no emergency exits spurred fierce public debates about the need for
strengthening controls and developing new institutional responses to avoid
future incidents.
62
The then mayor of Prato, Roberto Cenni, called it `an
announced tragedy', or an accident waiting to happen, referring to the poor
safety measures and the mix of working and living places that characterize
Chinese-owned workplaces.
63
546
Business Practices' in Rules and Networks: The Legal Culture of Global Business
Transactions, eds. R.P. Appelbaum et al. (2001) 335.
56 Benvenuti et al., op. cit., n. 5, p. 45.
57 id., p. 46.
58 Baldassar et al. (op. cit., n. 4, p. 35) refer to the World Trade Organization
Multifibre Arrangement which was rescinded in 2005 in order to allow developing
countries, such as China, the right to export textiles.
59 According to the Director of the Provincial Office for Economic Development,
Sonia Soldani: `before the crisis, the presence of the Chinese community was under
the carpet and they were functional to the whole economy. And they were not
perceived as a danger' (interview, June 2014).
60 Benvenuti et al., op. cit., n. 5, pp. 14±15.
61 A.A. Di Castro and M. Vicziany, `Chinese dragons in Prato: Italian-Chinese
relations in a small European town' in Johanson et al. (eds.), op. cit., n. 8.
62 An illustrative example is from the article `Mai piu
Ála cittaÁ dell'illegalitaÁ' in the
local newspaper La Cronaca: Prato, 30 May 2014, 42, where Alessandro Fabbrizzi,
the Secretary General of CGIL (the biggest labour union in Prato), determined that
Prato should be `no more the City of Illegality'. Fabbrizzi emphasized that the first
important task for the local government is to state loudly and clearly that illegality is
not tolerated in Prato ± and that the battle is to be fought by all inhabitants together.
63 Mayor Cenni expressed this view in an interview carried out by Il Tirreno on 1
December 2013, at
incendio-i n-una-fab brica-mor ti-e-feri ti-il-sin daco-cenn i-una-tra gedia-ann unciata/
22682/23216>.
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According to the public authorities, these irregularities are not found to
the same degree at Italian firms or in the case of other types of migrants who
run businesses or work in Prato.
64
In 2014, the local government therefore
gave Chinese firms the ultimatum of either entering into a process of
legalization or closing down.
65
To support those firms who agreed to enter
into a process of legalization, a new type of law consultancy was offered:
that of the law technician. Put differently, it was recognized that traditional
enforcement methods were no longer sufficient.
The next section analyses the creation and role of the law technicians,
including a) the tools they use and b) the experiences of law technicians so
far. It builds on 15 semi-structured interviews and documentary sources
gathered during two rounds of fieldwork in Prato. First, I conducted a pilot
study during May±July 2014 where I identified local street-level actors who
were directly involved in communicating Italian labour law to the Chinese
employers and workers.
66
I then made a follow-up trip to the field in
February 2015, specifically to study the work of law technicians, including
the tools employed to advance the protection of workers (concrete practices)
and the rationalities that drive the initiatives (ideas, values, expectations, and
attitudes towards law) to identify legal cultural continuities and changes. In
addition to the interview data, the article analyses various documentary
sources. These include legal sources, policy papers and reports, communica-
tion material, and newspaper articles, selected on the basis of a careful
reading of existing accounts of Italian labour law, previous research about
the Chinese in Prato, and advice provided by interviewees. Specialized
secondary literature plays an important role in this research as well. As a
foreigner trying to understand Italian legal culture, I have relied on the work
of Italian experts in fields ranging from law to history, anthropology,
political science, sociology, economics, and migration studies. The aim has
been to carry out a thick analysis of the current situation.
67
The article
thereby builds on the idea that by studying one case in depth, one can
generate hypotheses and questions that inform other cases and thus new
research.
68
547
64 Dottrina Per il Lavoro (2014), at ie-c/min-
lavoro-vigilanza-irregolari-quasi-il-65-delle-imprese-ispezionate-nel-2013>.
65 See the flyer that was distributed to inform the Chinese in Prato about the ulti-
matum, op. cit., n. 7.
66 I interviewed directors and officials in central provincial and municipal offices,
labour inspectors in the local Directorate for Labour Inspection and the local health
agency, central members of local research centres, including the coordinators of the
project that established the law technician as a new figure, and law technicians
themselves.
67 H.E. Brady and D. Collier, Rethinking Social Inquiry. Diverse Tools, Shared
Standards (2004) 309±10.
68 C. Robson, Real World Research: A Resource for Users of Social Research Methods
in Applied Settings (2011) 153.
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III. CREATING A NEW TYPE OF LAW ENFORCER
The idea of creating a new type of law enforcer in Prato was promoted by the
Regional Government of Tuscany in 2010 as part of a broad project named
the `Integrated Project for the Development of the Local Area of Prato'
(commonly known as `Progetto Prato'). Progetto Prato presents a strategy
for kick-starting the local economy by addressing the general problems of a
declining textile industry and the specific problems related to the lack of
integration of the large Chinese population. The creation of the law
technican is suggested in Priority 8 of the strategy.
69
Here, the need for a
new actor to facilitate upgrading processes for firms in Prato is emphasized.
The regional government calls this new actor `the A.S.C.I. technician'.
A.S.C.I. stands for Agente per lo Sviluppo di Cultura e Imprese (Agent for
the Development of Cultures and Firm-ownership). In this article, I call this
new figure a `law technician' to emphasize his/her role in solving problems
of compliance with the law by communicating and evaluating the technicali-
ties related to law compliance. According to the regional government, the
overarching goal of the law technician is to supplement the work of
traditional law enforcers, such as labour inspectorates, in `eliminating all
forms of undeclared work, thereby making sure that all work is contract-
based with conditions that meet minimum standards of health and safety.'
70
Importantly, political support and close cooperation among all relevant
institutions constitute foundational factors for formulating, training, and
implementing this new type of profession.
71
The law technician is the
outcome of a cooperative effort in which local government and traditional
actors have invested resources and time to add this new figure to the existing
enforcement landscape. The responsibility for its implementation is placed
on three project coordinators: Mario Biggeri, Leonardo Borsacchi (LB), and
Andrea Ferrannini (AF), who normally work on sustainable industrial
development as action-researchers at the local university PIN Polo Univer-
sitario Citta
Ádi Prato. According to the project coordinators, the first
challenge related to the establishment of the role of law technician involved
designing a training programme and developing a check-up tool.
72
The
project coordinators held various meetings with all stakeholders in Prato,
including local labour inspection authorities, the fire brigade, taxation
authorities, and public immigration services ± entities which are not
normally unified:
We have many partners. It was very difficult because they are partners that
normally don't work together in a project. And in this case, with the support of
548
69 Regione Toscana, Progetto Integrato per lo Sviluppo dell'area Pratese. Report
breve delle attivita
Áal 30 Giugno 2014 (2014) 20.
70 id.
71 LB (interview, May 2014).
72 id.
ß2018 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2018 Cardiff University Law School
the university it was possible to meet all together in the same project. With the
same focus and vision, they were very interested in solving this kind of
problem. (. ..) It was one of the first times that we were sitting around the same
table, deciding together what to do.
73
The participating institutions finally agreed upon a training programme of
240 hours of theoretical lectures combined with 360 hours of internship in
trade associations, organizations, and local companies.
74
The lectures were
organized around the core themes of local economy and policy; the EU and
Italian legislative frameworks; migration services and policy; company start-
ups; principles of accounting and taxation; labour contracts and labour
rights; health and safety at work; consumer law; environmental law; project
planning; management and evaluation; research methods and data analysis;
interculture; communication and conflict management; information search;
and English lessons.
75
The training thus embraces various factors expected
to influence the level of law compliance, including economy, policy, culture,
communication, services, and knowledge of the content of written law in
different areas (for example, taxation, health and safety, labour, environ-
ment, and consumer law). Professors involved in the training have come
from both Italian and Chinese universities, and various local institutions
have assisted by providing teachers, assistance, and input to the training
sessions.
76
This mix of expertise used to design the law technician job requirements
and training reflects a new approach to law enforcement where existing
institutional designs are rethought. Enforcement responsibilities in Prato have
traditionally been divided sharply among a wide range of actors, who focus
on specific parts of law. For instance, the labour inspectorate concentrates on
verifying the application of contract-based work, whereas the local health
agency investigates the level of compliance in relation to health and safety
standards.
77
Environmental legal requirements are dealt with by another
agency, and so on. The law technician, by contrast, sets out to do an integrated
check-up where three areas of law (labour law, taxation law, and environ-
mental law) are integrated in a 30-page questionnaire, known as the check-up
tool.
78
Like the training programme, the check-up tool has been developed by
the project coordinators in close cooperation with all relevant stakeholders.
Studying the check-up tool in detail therefore provides insight into the
rationalities driving law enforcement in Prato or, in other words, into the
549
73 id.
74 Regione Toscana, op. cit., n. 69, p. 20.
75
M. Biggeri, L. Borsacchi and A. Ferrannini, Emersione, sviluppo ed integrazione nel
territorio pratese. Professionalita
Áe strumenti di facilitazione (2015) 28±9, at
flore.unifi.it/retrieve/handle/2158/ 1066501/190295/Biggeri%20et%20al.%202015 a_
Pacini.pdf>.
76 AF (interview, May 2014).
77 id.
78 Biggeri et al., op. cit., n. 75, pp. 79±110. The questionnaire forms part of this report.
ß2018 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2018 Cardiff University Law School
compromises reached by existing law enforcement agents on what the new
law technician should focus on when visiting firms.
79
The questionnaire is divided into four parts: an `ice-breaker' section with
simple questions, a long second part which is the actual integration of legis-
lations of `technical-legal nature', a third section where the law technician
can note observations during the visit, and a fourth section where the firm-
owner can spell out his/her experiences with applying Italian law. The `ice-
breaker' section is described as necessary to `understand if the firm-owner is
really open to answering or not'.
80
Put otherwise, it is `an important step
towards understanding the openness and transparency of the interviewee.'
81
These questions concern, among other things, details about the company's
size and structure as well as membership of associations and whether the firm
has experienced inspection visits from the public authorities such as the Fire
Brigade, the l ocal health a nd safety auth orities or th e local labou r
inspectorates. Most of this information is available through the Register of
the Prato Chamber of Commerce, so the law technician already knows the
answers to these questions before meeting the firm-owner. Thus, this first
section is merely a tool for establishing a level of mutual trust between the
law technician and the firm representative to `show that we are behaving in a
different way compared to an inspection, and to see if it is possible to
proceed'.
82
The second part of the questionnaire asks 153 questions that break down
central elements of Italian law into technical requirements. Of these, 65
concern occupational health and safety, 19 address environmental protection,
27 ask about the content of employment contracts, 29 specify taxation
requirements, and 13 are used to evaluate the extent to which workers and
employer receive the required training and education in, for instance, health
and safety at work. Each question is followed by a paragraph that explains
the legal requirement with reference to the relevant piece of legislation. The
formulation of these questions focuses on specifying legal demands such as:
`Have you filled out the Risk Assessment Document (DVR)?' The question-
naire then distinguishes between levels of law compliance by dividing the
answer options into three types: compliance at a prerequisite level, com-
pliance at a base level, and compliance at an advanced level. A firm com-
plies with the prerequisite if the firm-owner answers: `Yes, I have filled out a
DVR', but then breaches the base-level requirement if replying `It is expired'
to the question `When was the DVR revised?' Put briefly, this part of the
check-up tool reduces law compliance to a matter of having specific
550
79 As put by AF: `The documents we used to elaborate this were the list for the
inspections and other similar but not integrated check-up lists that were available'
(interview, June 2014).
80 AF (interview, June 2014).
81 Biggeri et al., op. cit., n. 75, p. 38.
82 id.
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documents and reporting to specific public registers. There is limited room
for explaning cultural values and normative assumptions behind the legal
requirements. The law technician is not supposed to provide further
explanations other than referring to the written law. The reason for this,
according to the project coordinators, is that the upgrading of activities is a
long process with various steps, the first of which is to provide sufficient
information so that firm-owners do not have `the excuse' of not knowing the
law:
Our project is part of a long, big process of change in mentality. We hope that
with these actions we may change the mentality of the Chinese firm-owner.
(. . .) These were also the words of the Prato mayor, because he said recently
that: `We are putting on the table all the tools available: some budgets,
researchers, the technicians, the check-up tool, and the information materials:
all. In five years, Chinese firm-owners cannot say ``I don't know''. Because
we give them all the instruments. So in five years there will be no excuse for
the Chinese firm-owners.' This is the message.
83
Thus, the invention of a new type of law enforcer is first and foremost
intended to fill in the information gaps among Chinese migrants about Italian
`book law' rather than the purposes behind law. Put otherwise, the question-
naire is to some extent an example of autonomous law which requires strict
obedience from citizens and leaves limited room for purpose-orientation.
Strict obedience is not easy to realize, however:
Even because when they are doing an inspection, there is this sort of
compensation. If they are doing everything perfectly in some parts and then
are not really complying with everything here, the inspectors will say: `Okay,
this is zero sum. No problem. Try to solve this problem and we will not give
you a penalty.' So they are less rigid. The Italian style.
84
`The Italian style' is mentioned here by one of the project coordinators with
reference to the practices of Italian labour inspectors who set standards about
the degree to which self-regulation is acceptable, and it might turn out to be a
zero-sum game where non-compliance in one area is perceived as less
problematic if the rest of the checklist's points are ticked off. Here, the
exercise of spelling out legal demands is complicated as the actors involved
in formulating this new tool are confronted with their own understanding of
law. As mentioned, the questionnaire distinguishes between levels of law
compliance. This rather pragmatic approach to law compliance, where
citizens can behave `semi-legally', is often suggested as one of the charac-
teristics of the legal cultural landscape in Italy
85
± and, more generally, of
551
83 LB (interview, February 2015).
84 AF (interview, June 2014).
85 See, for instance, V. Olgiati, `The Italian Legal Culture: Legal Systems and the
Problem of Legitimacy: The Italian Case' in Gessner et al. (eds.), op. cit., n. 16, pp.
278±82; D.S. Clark, `Italian Styles: Criminal Justice and the Rise of an Active
Magistracy' in Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization. Latin America and Latin
Europe, eds. L.M. Friedman and R. PeÂrez-Perdomo (2003) 239±84.
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the Latin model of labour inspection.
86
In Prato, however, the idea of semi-
legality is challenged these days. Politicians, organizations, and citizens in
Prato call for `full legality' when it comes to Chinese firms while, at the
same time, the dominant perception of legal behaviour as being `in-between'
legal and illegal is implicit in this instrument developed to do something
about Chinese situations of non-compliance. In other words, the instrument
itself allows for law compliance to have degrees. The strict obedience
required by autonomous law is then, in practice, replaced by a more respon-
sive type of law, where there is room for addressing the social needs ± in this
case, a need for time and small steps taken by the Chinese firm-owner. It is a
gradual process, and only when complying to minimum standards does it
become possible to move towards advanced levels, according to the project
coordinators.
The third part of the questionnaire concerns direct observations of the law
technician. Here the law technician can note down observations about the
organization of the office, the work stations, number of workers, electric
installations, placement of gas bottles, kitchens, air quality, as well as the
standard of cleaning and hygiene.
87
The project coordinators underline that
this part of the questionnaire might not be completed as it depends on the
level of access provided by the firm-owner. Sometimes the interview takes
place in an office and the law technician is not allowed to enter the actual
workplace. So this type of direct observation is to be seen as a supplement to
the assessment of law compliance.
88
The fourth and final part of the questionnaire allows the firm-owner to
voice his or her experiences with applying law. It asks about the obstacles
and the needs of the firm-owner. Regarding obstacles, the questionnaire lists
the following options: `No obstacles', `Lack of information', `High costs',
`Linguistic problems', `Other', and `I don't know'.
89
Regarding needs, the
options are: `Tax exemption', `Monetary support', `Internet-based informa-
tion', `Free consultancy', `Paid consultancy', `Public offices with multi-
linguistic personnel', `Simple guidelines', `Other', and `I don't know'.
90
According to the project coordinators, these answer options were elaborated
based on a pre-testing of the questionnaire in which Chinese firm-owners
were interviewed.
91
So they are perceived as an exhaustive list of obstacles
and needs seen from the perspective of the Chinese firm-owners in Prato.
552
86 M.J. Piore and A. Schrank, `Toward managed flexibility: The revival of labour
inspection in the Latin world' (2008) 147 International Labour Rev. 1.
87 Biggeri et al., op. cit., n. 75, pp. 108±9.
88 AF (interview, June 2014).
89 Biggeri et al., op. cit., n. 75, p. 110.
90 id.
91 AF (interview, June 2014).
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On this basis, the law technician cannot easily be characterized as
representing a repressive, autonomous or responsive approach to law ±
rather, this new actor combines all three perspectives.
IV. THE LAW TECHNICIAN AT WORK
Precisely how the law technicians combine these three approaches to law
enforcement in their work on the ground is described in detail by the project
coordinators in their report, and illustrated with a figure
92
that shows the
firm-owner together with territorial stakeholders `at the top', and then
arrows indicating that they both influence the work of the law technicians.
While the territorial stakeholders inform the law technician of how work-
places ought to be organized according to existing law, the firm-owner
informs the law technician about how the workplace is actually organized in
practice with reference to health and safety, environment, contracts and
labour rights, taxation, and mandatory training. On this basis, one can argue,
law technicians are in a position to compare `law in the books' with `law in
action'. The observations of the law technicians are noted in the 30-page
questionnaire, as explained abov e. The outcome is described as an
identification of problems that are individual to the firm in question, and
the solutions to the problems are found in close cooperation with other types
of law enforcers, including associa tions, professionals, and qual ified
consultants, to reduce or eliminate the gap between what law demands
and what firms are doing in practice. After visiting the firm, the technician
analyses the results back in the office and, together with experts, prepares
the report to the employer with recommended steps for upgrading. The
report is then presented to the firm-owner during a follow-up visit by the
technician.
93
The establishment of trust is highlighted as a central ingredient in the
work of the law technician. According to the project coordinators, the ability
of the law technician to gain the trust of the Chinese firm-owner relies
heavily on his or her ability to speak Mandarin, and preferably the local
dialect of Wenzhounese.
94
This is another central component which makes
the law technician different from the types of law enforcers who struggle
553
92 Biggeri et al., op. cit., n. 75, p. 30.
93 id., pp. 44±50.
94 Approximately 80 per cent of the Chinese in Prato come from Wenzhou, a city
located in the Zheijiang Province in the south-east region of China. For a detailed
description of Wenzhou and Wenzhounese entreprenurship, see L. Pretto, `Adher-
ence to Asian Values amongst Wenzhounese in Wenzhou and First-Generation
Wenzhounese Migrants in Prato' in Baldassar et al. (eds.), op. cit., n. 4, ch. 11.
ß2018 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2018 Cardiff University Law School
with linguistic problems and difficulties of establishing trust when visiting
Chinese firms.
95
Linguistic skills were therefore one of the central criteria for choosing
candidates to be trained as law technicians. The recruitment process was
carried out in November 2013. The project coordinators selected 15 people
for the training programme: seven Chinese, one Romanian, one Pakistani
and six Italians.
96
Of the seven Chinese law technicians, only one living in
Prato applied for the job and was included. The other six Chinese law
technicians come from different parts of China and were in Italy for the
purpose of studying abroad.
97
Law technicians themselves express different motivations for applying as
well as different ambitions after getting their diploma. The group is rather
diverse. What they have in common is their youth, a willingness to try
something new, and the perception that being trained as a law technician
enhances job opportunities. For instance, the Italian participants express first
of all a fascination with China as a driver for applying for the training
combined with a curiosity about the challenges of Prato. They have all been
studying Mandarin both in Italian universities and in China. In comparison,
Chinese participants mention issues such as obtaining experience and
competences in performing firm audits as motivating factors.
98
According to
the law technicians, it proved to be essential to have one Chinese living in
Prato on the team of law technicians.
99
In particular, the ability to speak
Wenzhounese and familiarity with the backgrounds of both employers and
workers were a valuable means to establish trust and gain access to Chinese
firms.
The 15 law technicians visited 75 companies from May to August 2014:
69 Chinese-owned, two Pakistani-owned, and four Italian-owned firms.
100
554
95 According to the Head of the local Unit for Labour Inspections, Vitantonio
Lagonigro, language and trust are central barriers when conducting inspections:
`Despite the presence of a Chinese interpreter, the Chinese workers often keep quiet.
They don't want to tell about their working hours but we know that in general the
Chinese tend to work more than the limits set by collective labour law. We know this
from the workers who told us but not all are willing to talk' (interview, May 2014).
96 According to the project coordinators, one Romanian law technician and one
Pakistanian law technician were considered relevant as Romanian and Pakistani
inhabitants make up two big migrant communities in Prato (interview, May 2014). It
needs to be mentioned that the law technician was originally designed to be capable
of helping all firms in Prato, not only the Chinese ones. Public pressure in the
aftermath of the incident in December 2013 resulted in the main focus being on
getting access to Chinese employers and workers.
97 This information is based on interviews with law technicians (four Italians and three
Chinese), June 2014.
98 id.
99 id.
100 The 75 firms include: 42 in the clothing sector, 10 in fast fashion, three in dye
works, three in knitwear, four in textile production, two in textile commerce, one
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The data they gathered have been analysed and published by the project
coordinators in the report Emersione, sviluppo ed integrazione nel territorio
pratese. Professionalita
Áe strumenti di Facilitazione.
101
The report empha-
sizes the main shortcomings of labour law compliance in the 75 companies
as found by the law technicians. In relation to health and safety, one of the
critical issues relates to the risk assessment document (DVR) that is only
filled out in `a generic form without reflecting the real situation of pro-
duction in the firm'.
102
Biggeri et al. argue that this indicates two interrelated
problems: (i) the ineffectiveness of some firm consultants and (ii) the lack of
awareness and knowledge of the firm-owner regarding the importance and
usefulness of the DVR.
103
Another critical issue is the failure to appoint
health and safety representatives among the workers and the lack of training
of all workers in safety and health issues.
104
On this basis, Biggeri et al.
conclude that it is necessary to improve information and support to firm-
owners and workers to enhance their understanding of the importance of law:
Overall, therefore, the issues regarding safety in the workplace just outlined
indicate a clear need for compani es in foreign ownership to have a
professional such as the A.S.C.I. technician able not only to analyse the
compliance of the firm in a 360ë integrated manner, but also to guide firm-
owners through an informative, operational, and managed process to ensure
their understanding of the importance of the DVR; (. . .) educate and inform
firm-owner and workers about the need for free emergency ways, access to fire
extinguishers, keeping order in the flow of goods and people, and facilitating
overall management of the work environment to prevent risk to the safety of
workers.
105
These concluding remarks indicate that information, education, and
assistance/guidance are seen as important means to achieve law compliance.
According to the project coordinators, the great proliferation of rules that is
characteristic of autonomous law has an important unintended effect: it
becomes difficult for citizens to obey the law. Firm-owners then have to rely
on experts such as lawyers and consultants. The driving rationality behind
the creation of the law technician seems to be that if citizens are better
informed and educated, they will be less dependent on consultants that are
sometimes `ineffective' and `exploit the information and linguistic gap of the
employer'.
106
Of the 75 firms visited by the law technicians, 9 per cent
answered `dishonest consultants' when asked about difficulties and obstacles
555
print shop, one tailor, one in finishing, one ironing firm, one producing textile
machinery, three restaurants, and three in food commerce (Biggeri et al., op. cit., n.
75, pp. 52±4).
101 id.
102 id., p. 59 (my translation).
103 id.
104 id.
105 id., p. 61 (my translation).
106 id., p. 65 (my translation).
ß2018 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2018 Cardiff University Law School
to law compliance. By comparison, 48 per cent of the firms highlight lack of
information, 41 per cent cite high costs, 28 per cent stress linguistic
problems, and 16 per cent refer to the complexity of the bureaucracy.
107
When asked what is needed to increase law compliance, the interviewed
firm-owners point to free consultancy services, a public office with multi-
linguistic personnel, tax deductions, and websites with guidelines.
108
On that basis, Biggeri et al. conclude that the important next step for local
policymakers, territorial stakeholders, and civil society is to:
activate processes of participation in decision-making and dialogue with a
class of individuals ± foreign firm-owners ± often not heard but whose activi-
ties play an important socio-economic role within the territory of Prato.
109
The aspirations of the project coordinators can thus be seen as a quest for
responsive law. However, as noted by Nonet and Selznick, it requires
political willingness and resources to go down that road.
110
All three project
coordinators in charge of the creation and implementation of the law tech-
nician as a new type of law enforcer are involved in action research which
means that they use data gathered by law technicians to generate policy
recommendations. But then it is left to politicians, lawmakers, and other
stakeholders to shape their approach to law enforcement accordingly:
We interviewed 75 firm-owners and, look, most of them are saying that the big
problem is not the costs. It is that they don't get what they have to do. So, for
instance, having some guidelines to distribute freely or having one website
they can visit could be a good solution.
111
This statement suggests that the law technician is intended to establish a
dialogue about the black-letter reading of law (the technicalities of law) with
the aim of not only supporting foreign-owned companies in upgrading
activities, but also providing a kind of wake-up call to the autonomous law's
proliferation of rules in order to stimulate purpose-orientation and par-
ticipatory institutional designs:
There is another indication to the public institutions: look, if you try to put
everything into a questionnaire, you would realise how many communications
you are asking a firm-owner to do in different places. And not all com-
munications can be done electronically and that is a problem. Because even
when you want to try, you want to respect everything, to comply with
everything, then you need to go to this office, go to the other office, and so
on.
112
556
107 id.
108 id., p. 66.
109 id. (my translation).
110 Nonet and Selznick, op. cit., n. 33, p. 113.
111 AF (interview, June 2014).
112 id.
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In other words, law technicians ± and their trainers ± are themselves con-
fronted with the established legal system and try to see it from the
perspective of the user of law. One may argue that this kind of reflexivity is
needed if responsive types of law are to gain credence. Law enforcers, then,
need to reflect upon the pros and cons of the established rules and practices.
The problem of `dishonest consultants' mentioned by 9 per cent of the 75
firms that agreed to a visit from a law technician is one example of an
established practice that needs to be addressed, but nevertheless remains
difficult to solve:
There is one process which cannot be led by us. It is the, let's say, the attack on
the dishonesty of Italian consultants. So attack the Italian dark side which is
pushing Chinese firms to stay in this situation. And nothing has been done so
far, I mean, there has been some sort of general agreement, but I mean, the
control plans and the intensification have all gone in the direction of `go
inspect the firm inside'.
113
The key priority at the moment is to advance the level of workers' protection
inside foreign-owned firms. Put simply, the main goal of the law technician
is to help migrant employers and workers to change practices, not Italians ±
at least, not in the first place.
The creation and implementation of the law technician was finalized by
the end of 2014 and has spurred several new initiatives. One of them is called
F.A.C.E. (Formazione, Autovalutazione e Consulenza per l'Emersione
(Training, Self-assessment and Advice for Emersione)). Of the 75 firms
visited by the law technicians in the first phase, 23 have been selected for
further upgrading. The remaining 52 firms have either been in `such a bad
condition that they cannot be supported to upgrade' and the only advice for
them was to close down; others have disappeared in the period between the
first visit and the follow-up, perhaps as a result of the intense control activity
of the local labour inspection agencies, or as a result of the general ups and
downs in the clothing industry.
114
The plan of F.A.C.E. is to assist the 23
firms through an upgrading process based on training courses in health and
safety management and free consultancy from experts ± a process that is still
ongoing.
V. RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS
The article has analysed the creation of a new type of law enforcer that seeks
to combat the health and safety problems detected in local foreign-owned
firms. The conclusion is that this new legal profession is using different
methods compared to traditional types of law enforcers to gain access to
557
113 AF (interview, February 2015).
114 id.
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firms and their workers to communicate law. In other words, they are
engaged in a process of reinventing existing approaches to law enforcement
based on the premise that there should no longer be an excuse for being ill-
informed about law. Law technicians use a 30-page questionnaire combined
with multilinguistic, multicultural, and multidisciplinary skills to fill this
perceived information gap. When law technicians visit the firms, they
behave differently from traditional law enforcers: law technicians can only
enter the firm if invited, and they offer a preventive check-up to prepare
firms before labour inspectorates pay their visit. Like the labour inspectorate,
law technicians run through the relevant legal requirements based on a
check-list. But unlike labour inspectorates, the law technician integrates
labour law with central elements of environmental law and taxation law. A
hybrid understanding of workers' protection is thereby established. At the
same time, the law technicians have linguistic skills and do not have to rely
on interpreters when dealing with foreign companies. This enhances the
chances of establishing a high level of trust between the enforcer and the
users of law.
The three types of law identified by Nonet and Selznick in their
developmental model of law are present in the recent initiative in Prato. The
initiatives entail a combination of what one could call the rhetoric of
autonomous law supplemented by repressive and responsive tools. The
rhetoric of autonomous law is present in the reproduction of black-letter
readings of law carried out by the law technicians when they spell out the
legal demands and purposes of the law in new formats, with different
degrees of law compliance and integration of labour law, environmental law,
and taxation law, building on the idea that the firms need to be informed of
not only the content of separate laws, but also the interrelation between the
protection of workers and, for instance, environmental and taxation laws. At
the same time, the creation of the role of law technician represents a slight
shift in orientation towards responsive law. As demonstrated, the central aim
of establishing law technicians as a new type of actor engaged in law
enforcement is to give both institutional actors and users of the law the
opportunity to discuss their daily experiences of relating to law, including
the way law is formulated and understood. Institutional actors, such as
politicians at regional, provincial, and municipal levels, as well as labour
inspection agencies and advocacy organizations, have contributed to the
advancement of labour law compliance by designing training modules for
law technicians and developing the 30-page check-up tool. Thus, the
exercise of creating a new type of legal profession pushes the participating
institutions to question their own norms, principles, values, and sanction
mechanisms. The critical situation has indeed activated a wide range of
actors and the basic mechanisms of legal cultural adaptation are spelled out
in different ways as has been demonstrated in this article.
Put differently, the process of reinventing law enforcement in Prato is
characterized by self-referential mechanisms. This means that the enforce-
558
ß2018 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2018 Cardiff University Law School
ment initiatives are informed by the law enforcers' own attitudes towards
law as well as the way in which internal models of the outside world are
constructed. Furthermore, the users of law, for example, the Chinese firm-
owners, are able to describe the motivations for law compliance and barriers
to it during the interview conducted by the law technician. By asking the
users of law directly about their perception of law, law technicians are
establishing a channel for direct input from the social sub-systems about
their problem-solving mechanisms and experiences, albeit on a rather limited
scale.
In conclusion, it can be argued that Nonet and Selznick's hypothesis that
the legal system itself produces solutions in times of crisis seems to hold
true. The `authority of law is in crisis'
115
in Prato as a large number of
firms (about 4,000 Chinese firms out of 29,067) do not operate according
to the official Italian rules regarding health and safety at the workplace
which means that a great part of the workforce in Prato is not protected by
labour law (8 to 15 per cent of the working population).
116
Law technicians
are a solution created and funded by politicians and lawmakers in Prato.
The new profession emphasizes responsiveness by establishing a channel
for gaining insight into the self-referential mechanisms of Chinese work-
places and by pointing out ways in which legal traditions and routines can
be rethought. The empirical data gathered for this study show that various
actors in Prato acknowledge the need for better insight into the cultural
background of the Chinese migrants and more involvement of the Chinese.
It can be argued, however, that this experiment of establishing exchange
relations between law as a closed system and its environment might not
have any effect on the dominant repressive and autonomous approaches to
law. Repressive tools involving controls and sanctions and black-letter
reading of law still play a central role in combatting the problems of non-
compli ance in P rato. D ialog ue and co nsult ancy ar e promo ted as
supplementary tools. In sum, it remains a political decision as to how to
invest in problem solving or in the `learning capacities of the legal system',
in Gunther Teubner's words.
117
It is indeed difficult to foresee the degree of success and failure of local
law enforcers as regards improving levels of labour law compliance in Prato.
So far, only a small percentage of the Chinese firms have agreed to a visit
from law technicians,
118
and it is too early to draw firm conclusions about
the success of the initiatives when the process is still unfolding.
559
115 Nonet and Selznick, op. cit., n. 33, pp. 4±5.
116 Benvenuti et al., op. cit., n. 5.
117 G. Teubner, `Autopoiesis in Law and Society: A Rejoinder to Blankenburg' (1984)
18 Law & Society Rev. 296.
118 As of 27 January 2015, 258 firms in Prato had signed an agreement to upgrade
activities, according to the article `Patto per Il Lavoro Sicuro, La Firma in Comune'
in the local newspaper La Nazione, 27 January 2015.
ß2018 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2018 Cardiff University Law School
The case of Prato, nevertheless, suggests an innovative network-based
path of dealing with socio-legal problems in contemporary societies; a path
where linkages are created between the traditional professionalized legal
system and new legal actors in order to communicate as well as enforce
existing law. Prato is an extreme case, and extreme cases often `reveal more
information because they activate more actors and more basic mechanisms in
the situation studied', according to Bent Flyvbjerg.
119
The challenges facing
Prato are, however, likely to happen elsewhere where societies host foreign
firm-owners and associated workers. Chinese migration represents but one of
the great migratory flows which have profound consequences for both
destination and host societies.
120
In essence, knowledge gained from studying Prato is useful on a wider
scale when discussing broader trends in the global world of work, where core
labour rights are under pressure due to the way production is organized. The
International Labour Organization (ILO) has documented a shift away from
the standard model of employment, where workers earn wages and salaries
in a dependent employment relationship vis-aÁ-vis their employers, and have
stable jobs and full time work.
121
In both emerging and advanced economies,
employment has become unstable and involves short-term contracts and
irregular hours.
122
Migrant workers represent a vulnerable group in this
context. Many migrants, with limited knowledge of a host country's labour
law, are likely to be hired on temporary contracts and can look forward to
`insecure labour, flitting in and out of jobs, often with incomplete contracts
or forced into indirect labour relationships via agencies or brokers'.
123
According to Standing, this mobile labour force is subjected to `precariatisa-
tion', that is, `habituation to expecting a life of unstable labour and unstable
living'.
124
At the same time there are ongoing debates about the need for
ensuring decent working conditions for all, including those who work at
micro- and small enterprises (MSEs). For instance, the ILO has identified
central factors that may explain the often low level of compliance of MSEs
with labour laws, including the economic precariousness of many MSEs, the
design of legislation, exclusive reliance on the traditional enforcement
approaches with a strong focus on sanctions, and lack of information about
560
119 B. Flyvbjerg, `Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research' (2006) 12
Qualitative Inquiry 229.
120 J. Howe and R. Owens (eds.), Temporary Labour Migration in the Global Era: The
Regulatory Challenges (2016).
121 ILO, World Employment and Social Outlook: The Changing Nature of Jobs (2015)
3.
122 id.
123 G. Standing, `Why the Precariat Is Not a ``Bogus Concept''' openDemocracy, 4
March 2014, a t endemocra cy.net/g uy-stand ing/why-p recariat -is-not-
%E2%80%9Cbogus-concept%E2%80%9D>.
124 id.
ß2018 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2018 Cardiff University Law School
legislation among MSE employers and workers.
125
The development triggers
the need for reinventing law enforcement, in order to deal with contemporary
gaps in the protection of workers.
Experiments, like the one conducted in Prato, are ongoing in many
societies. Quinlan and Sheldon show that a shift from reactive and punitive
enforcement to proactive and responsive enforcement has been evolving
over the past 15 years.
126
They emphasize that this shift has not been
unproblematic:
This is especially so where union density is declining, inspectorates are under-
resourced or suffering cuts (. . .) and where changes to business structures and
work organisation are undermining working conditions.
127
Marx and Wouters focus specifically on the relationship between regulation
and enforcement practices and discuss in depth the trends and potential of
new forms of co-regulation, including the establishment of hybrid forms of
labour governance where private and public actors develop new enforcement
tools together.
128
The law technician is indeed to be placed within these
debates. As shown in this article, the post represents a new type of actor who
establishes a hybrid approach to law enforcement characterized by a mix of
top-down and bottom-up approaches to enforcement.
There are, however, still only few empirical studies about what is being
done on a daily basis by local actors to avoid the neglect of workers'
protection in contemporary societies characterized by a high inflow of
foreign firms and workers.
129
More studies should aim at going beyond
popular debates of labour dumping where the migrant or the foreign
company is always the bad guy and, rather, setting out to understand the
plurality of norms in light of the cultural dimensions of law, that is, attitudes
towards the law in society and how they can be engaged in a constructive
dialogue about how society should be ordered. So instead of starting from a
legal centralist assumption, research on plural legal cultures within a social
field should inform the formulation, implementation, and enforcement of
legal ideas. More empirical studies need to be undertaken, for instance, of
how Chinese migrants in Prato themselves understand the role of law in
society and the employer±employee relationship. Put differently, the present
561
125 ILO Committee on Employment and Social Policy, Business environment, labour
law and micro- and small enterprises (2006) GB297-ESP-1, 7±11.
126 Quinlan and Sheldon, op. cit., n. 14.
127 id., p. 9.
128 A. Marx and J. Wouters, `Redesigning enforcement in private labour regulation:
Will it work?' (2016) 155 International Labour Rev. 435.
129 R. Cholewinski, `International Labour Law and the Protection of Migrant Workers:
Revitalizing the Agenda in the Era of Globalization' in Globalization and the Future
of Labour Law, eds. J.D.R. Craig and S.M. Lynk (2006) ch. 15; M. Jansen, R. Peters,
and J.M. Salazar-Xirinachs (eds.), Trade and Employment: From Myths to Facts
(2011).
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exercise for law enforcers is to understand better the possible limits of the
European Enlightenment's legal tradition (based on the argument that
informed citizens will both fulfil their duties and claim their rights) when it
meets foreign legal traditions, such as the Chinese tradition of hierarchy and
loyalty with Confucianism and paternalism as central philosophies guiding
behaviour.
130
This is not to praise the cultural relativism thesis but to
challenge it and take the best from all cultures instead of imposing one
culture on another. This creates only tensions, not solutions.
562
130 For a thorough discussion of legal cultural encounters or the meeting of legal
traditions under globalization, see, for example, W.A. Callahan and E. Barabantseva
(eds.), China Orders the World: Normative Soft Power and Foreign Policy (2011),
which argues (p. 41) that `the foundation of the Enlightenment is to use knowledge
to achieve certainty in life, whereas traditional Chinese thought looks to the ideas of
change and uncertainty.'
ß2018 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2018 Cardiff University Law School
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