MILAN, May 30: Italian prosecutors have accused a contractor building a new US consulate in Milan of paying Indian workers well below the national poverty line for 60 hours of "harsh" work weekly.
Prosecutors in a decree seen by AFP on Friday said they were appointing an administrator to work with Caddell Construction to normalise working conditions at the $200 million project.
Based in Alabama, the construction firm Caddell has built numerous US embassies and consulates around the world.
The decree said 35 labourers recruited in India were earning less than five euros an hour before compulsory deductions for board and lodging.
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The Milan prosecutors said workers' testimonies pointed to "a recurring criminal scheme".
The US embassy in Rome did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.
Wages ranged between 800 and 1,400 euros a month for roughly 60 hours of work a week, six days a week between 6:00am and 6:00pm.
The employer deducted 500 euros a month for housing and between 300 and 370 euros for lunch, according to the decree, resulting in a salary that amounted to half the Italian poverty threshold.
Moreover, "life on the construction site could be described as harsh and devoid of any human sensitivity," according to the prosecutors.
They said time pressure on the project led "team leaders to adopt a hostile and peremptory attitude toward their subordinates, also making them carry out tasks not provided for in the contract in order to meet the target".
Before leaving India, the workers had also already paid 500,000 rupees, or about 5,000 euros, to be hired by an Indian subsidiary of Caddell and to obtain three-year residence permits for Italy.
In its visa applications, the American contractor declared an annual salary of more than 24,000 euros for each worker and claimed they were highly specialised.
The court-appointed administrator named by the Milan prosecutor's office has been tasked with settling unpaid wages and restoring normal conditions on the site.
