When the Subcontractor Is Bangladeshi: Racialised Fragmentation of Work in Italian Shipyards

Abstract

This paper investigates the emergence of Bangladeshi subcontractors within the production system of Italian shipbuilding, focusing on the organizational model of Fincantieri, the state owned company that dominates the sector. Over the past decades, the Italian shipbuilding industry has undergone a profound transformation driven by the decentralisation of production and the fissurisation of work. Within Fincantieri’s shipyards, production is no longer organised around a single, vertically integrated firm but through a complex network of hundreds of contracting and subcontracting companies operating on-site. This multi-layered structure - comprising first-tier contractors and a dense web of smaller subcontracting firms, alongside a large pool of temporary and agency workers - has profoundly reshaped the labour process and employment relations in the sector. Migrant labour has become a structural component of this system, particularly within the subcontracting chain. Among the various national groups employed in shipbuilding, Bangladeshi workers represent one of the most visible and over-represented communities, concentrated in specific phases of the production cycle such as industrial cleaning, pipefitting, and grinding. In recent years, however, a new phenomenon has emerged: the rise of Bangladeshi-owned subcontracting firms. These companies, often founded by former workers who have moved into new roles as small entrepreneurs and labour intermediaries, now operate as labour suppliers and micro-contractors within the shipyard’s fragmented production network. The paper explores the implications of this development for labour management, recruitment practices, and workplace relations. Drawing on the analytical framework of labour process theory and complementary perspectives, it examines how the emergence of Bangladeshi subcontractors reshapes the organization and control of work inside shipyards. By analysing the everyday dynamics of recruitment, supervision, and labour discipline, the paper seeks to understand whether these migrant subcontractors reproduce, mediate, or challenge existing patterns of exploitation and control within fissured workplaces The research builds on qualitative fieldwork conducted in Italian shipyards, combining interviews with migrant workers, subcontractors, NGO activists, and union representatives, as well as archival research and on-site observations. Through this empirical lens, the paper aims to uncover the ways in which subcontracting functions not only as an economic device for cost reduction and flexibility but also as a social and political mechanism that reconfigures power relations within the labour process. By focusing on the case of Bangladeshi subcontractors in Italian shipbuilding, the paper contributes to broader debates on migrant labour, ethnic segmentation, and the reorganisation of production in contemporary capitalism. It highlights how processes of racialised fragmentation are actively produced and managed within industrial settings, revealing the intersection of migration, subcontracting, and labour control in one of Europe’s most emblematic manufacturing sectors.