IT IS the proud port town in northern Italy where some of the world’s most impressive cruise ships are built – but where almost a third of the population is foreign-born.
Now, in a stark warning to the UK, residents in Monfalcone, an hour from Venice, have warned of the perils of getting hooked on cheap overseas labour.
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And they tell of culture clashes with more than 6,000 Bangladeshi residents in a small town that is unfamiliar with Islamic culture.
Monfalcone’s right-wing mayor, Anna Maria Cisint, says 31 per cent of its 31,000 population are foreign migrants, including Romanians and people from the Balkans.
Cisint, who swept to power on the back of anti-immigration sentiment, dubs the influx an “invasion”.
She claims just 1,700 of the 6,600 Bangladeshi residents are in work and only a tiny fraction of these are women.
Others say Monfalcone would be a ghost town without the migrants working for state-run shipbuilding firm Fincantieri, but the newcomers are on such low wages they cannot afford to shop locally.
‘Tsunami yet to come’
Conservative MP Neil O’Brien said: “This is a good example of the downsides of a high-immigration and low-wage strategy.
There are aspects of recent UK immigration policy which are too much like this and have led to large numbers coming here, who have not worked, or worked on very low wages, and the overall effect on quality of life for people here has been negative.
“What happened in this town is a stark warning to the UK.”
Thomas Casotto from the Italian General Confederation of Labour told the Sun on Sunday: “We have been trying to compete with China and Russia on price by importing low-wage workers but that is not the right solution.
“We need to compete on the quality of our products, and to do that we need to invest in training.
“We are bringing people over to work on illegal contracts for as little as four or five euros an hour. That is not acceptable.
“I fear it is the tip of the iceberg. The real tsunami is yet to come.”
Their culture is so different to ours. There is no will to integrate from their side. They live in Monfalcone
as if they are still in Bangladesh and some of the new arrivals are radical in their viewsAnna Maria Cisint, Montfalcone mayor
In 2021, 9.3million foreign-born people aged 16 and over lived in England and Wales, according to the Office for National Statistics.
It is a huge rise on the 5.3million of all ages the Migration Observatory says lived in the UK in 2004.
One in four care workers here were born outside of the UK, as were more than 60 per cent of bottlers, packers, canners and fillers — typically low-wage jobs — according to the Office of National Statistics.
An ONS study showed that between October and December 2023, 4.6 per cent of people on zero-hour contracts were born outside the UK.
An Institute For Fiscal Studies report in 2022 suggested immigration was reducing the hourly rate of the UK-born population’s lowest wage earners by around half of one pence per year.
Estimates by the World Bank and the EU’s statistics office, Eurostat, suggest £7.7billion was sent abroad from Britain through remittances in 2018, much of it likely to have been earned by foreign nationals.
Mayor Cisint told us: “We are now spending 95 per cent of our welfare budget on foreign nationals. We have asked the shipbuilding companies to change their production model.
“We want them to promote direct hiring from the local workforce. My message to the UK is that immigration has many consequences, so be careful.”
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The low birthrate in Italy — 1.24 children per woman compared to 1.56 in the UK — means big construction firms have had little option but to bring in workers from abroad.
Provincial secretary Casotto claims 80 per cent of the 8,000 migrants building the £1billion Fincantieri cruise ships are exploited and are on illegal contracts handled by subcontractors.
He said: “We are not against people moving to Monfalcone, as we need workers.
“But the salary these migrants receive is always less than they were promised and they can end up working up to 300 hours a month, even though the legal limit is 208 hours. It’s not fair competition.
“If you pay a fair wage, you can’t compete on price.”
In power since 2016, Cisint is part of the Lega right-wing populist party and has brought in policies viewed as an attack on the area’s Muslims.
They include effectively banning prayers in the local Islamic centres, although she insists this is a planning issue because the buildings are designated for cultural activities.
She added: “So many men have been brought over from Bangladesh and our permissive system allows them to bring their dependents.
“The model has caused wage dumping and reduced the attractiveness of working in the shipyard for the local community.
“Also, their culture is so different to ours. There is no will to integrate from their side.
‘Wage dumping’
“We see women in full veils and little girls going to Bangladesh to marry.
“They live in Monfalcone as if they are still in Bangladesh and some of the new arrivals are radical in their views.
“Our country can’t afford to open our doors in this way.”
Enrico Bullian, a left-wing councillor for the wider Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, slams Cisint’s policies as a “campaign to criminalise one ethnic group”.
He said: “Monfalcone without Bangladeshi workers would be a ghost town.
“The shipyard would not function without them and it generates 50 per cent of our GDP.
“They help the town to grow as they have many children whereas Italians are slow to give birth.”
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Rejaul Haq, 36, runs a money-transfer company in the town and is also a community leader.
He worked as a welder in the shipyards from 2007 to 2013.
The Bangladesh-born father of two said: “At first I was paid 12 euros an hour but they kept cutting it until it was eight.
“Then I quit. The cost- cutting is a race to the bottom.
“Bangladeshis still want to come here to work because they can earn four times more and this country is safer and more stable.
“Italy offers the chance of a first-class lifestyle.”
In the main square, pensioner Giorgio Pacor, 79, said: “I’m proud that we build the most beautiful ships in the world.
“But we never have enough workers so people have always come here to work.
“The difference now is that Bangladeshi workers are from small villages and are poor.
“They don’t have money to spend at local businesses so we have shops opening selling low-quality and cheap products.
“This is an issue affecting all of Europe including the UK.”
A spokesman for Fincantieri said it operates its supply chain in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
They said: “Whoever is aware of alleged wrongdoing in the behavior of the supply chain has been strongly encouraged – firstly by Fincantieri – to demonstrate and report it to relevant authorities.
“Moreover, in coherence with its long time adopted Code of Ethics and highest ESG standards, Fincantieri is constantly committed to address and mitigate to the maximum extent the unavoidable social impacts of its shipyards to all the territories and communities in which it works.
“The Group operates in four continents with 18 yards managing 60 different nationalities worldwide, and exercises everywhere its social responsibility with full accountability to its workforce and the local communities according to the highest standards in its industry.
“With more than 100 years of history, Fincantieri is very proud of its Monfalcone shipyard and of its workers, whose relentless efforts generate billions of GDP in Friuli Venezia Giulia and thousands of jobs in the Region through its ecosystems of SME’s.”
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