From outside the train window, after passing thousands and thousands of white plastic-covered polytunnels – the greenhouses in which tomatoes, aubergines and other vegetables and fruits are grown, Vittoria comes into view. Its train station used to be a busy place every spring. Workers would wait for local pickups in the open square outside, named after Vittoria Nenni, an Italian anti-fascist who died in the concentration camp in Auschwitz. This was where rows of long-distance coaches parked up. From 2007 when Romania joined the EU, up until the Covid-19 lockdown this March, these coaches have travelled between Sicily and the impoverished regions of Romania, bringing the much-needed agricultural workers upon whom the province of Ragusa, Sicily, depends.
This province has been one of the main destinations for Romanians, the largest group of agricultural workers in Italy, numbering around 113,000. By late 2019, there were around 30,000 Romanians living in Vittoria – including those without residence permits – half of this town’s entire population.
Many Romanian workers come from Iași, the second largest city in north-eastern Romania near the border to Moldova. It’s a university town with a population of 500,000, described by most Romanians as “having nothing going for it”. With the economic decline, the average working-class monthly income was under €250.
