Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System Read Online Free PDF Page B

best you can, so that no one will find any reason to fire you. No safety net, just cause, sick leave, or vacation days. It’s up to you to negotiate your rights, to plead for time off. But there’s nothing to complain about. Everything is just as it should be. Here there’s only a body, a skill, a machine, and a salary. No one knows the exact number of clandestine workers in these parts, or how many legal employees are forced to sign a monthly pay slip for sums they never receive.

    Xian was to take part in an auction. We went to an elementary-school classroom, but there were no children and no teacher, just sheets of construction paper with big letters tacked to the walls. About twenty company reps were milling around. Xian was the only foreigner. He only greeted two people, and without excessive familiarity. A car pulled into the school courtyard, and three people entered the room: two men and a woman. The woman was wearing a leather skirt and high-heeled patent-leather shoes. Everyone rose to greet her. They took their places and the auction began. One of the men drew three vertical lines on the blackboard and wrote as the woman dictated. In the first column:
    “800”
    This was the number of garments to make. The woman listed the types of fabric and the quality of the articles. A businessman from Sant’ Antimo went over to the window, turning his back to the rest of us, and offered his prices and times:
    “Forty euros apiece in two months.”
    His proposal was written on the board:
    “800/40/2”
    The other businessmen didn’t look worried. He hadn’t dared enter the realm of the impossible, which evidently was to their liking. But not to the buyers’. So the bidding continued.
    The auctions the big Italian brands hold in this area are strange. No one wins the contract and no one loses. The game consists in entering or not entering the race. Someone throws out an offer, stating his time and price. If his conditions are accepted, he won’t be the only winner, however. His offer is like a head start the others can try to follow. When the brokers accept a bid, the other contractors decide if they want in; whoever agrees gets the fabric. It’s sent directly to the port of Naples, where the contractors pick it up. But only one of them will be paid: the one who delivers first, and with top-quality merchandise. The other players are free to keep the fabric, but they don’t get a cent. The fashion houses make so much money that material isn’t aloss worth considering. If a contractor takes advantage of the system to have free fabric but repeatedly fails to deliver, he’s excluded from future auctions. In this way the brokers are guaranteed speed: if someone falls behind, someone else will take his place. There’s no relief from the rhythms of high fashion.
    To the joy of the woman behind the desk, another hand went up. A well-dressed contractor, elegant.
    “Twenty euros in twenty-five days.”
    In the end the bid was accepted. Nine of the twenty contractors signed on as well. But not Xian. He wouldn’t have been able to coordinate quality and speed in such a short time and at such low prices. When the auction was over, the woman wrote up a list of the contractors’ names and phone numbers and the addresses of their factories. The winner invited everyone to his house for lunch. His factory was on the ground floor, he and his wife lived on the second, his son on the third. “I’m applying for a permit to add another floor. My other son is getting married,” he declared proudly. As we climbed the stairs, he continued to tell us about his family, which, like his villa, was under construction.
    “Don’t ever put men in charge of the female workers, it only causes problems. I’ve got two sons, and both of them married employees. Put the fags in charge. Make the fags manage the shifts and inspect the work, like in the old days …”
    The workers, men and women, came up to toast the new contract. They faced a