Production country
Italy
Italy’s garment sector is shaped by regional production clusters and extensive subcontracting, with SMEs dominating the sector. While national collective bargaining is well established, fragmented supply chains reduce transparency and weaken enforcement. Risks include excessive overtime, low wages, irregular contracts, and unsafe conditions, particularly affecting workers in smaller workshops and migrant or undocumented labour.
Italy’s garment sector is characterised by specialised regional production clusters and extensive subcontracting networks, with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) making up most of the sector. While Italy has a well-established industrial relations system based on national collective bargaining, risks remain further down supply chain where fragmented production can lead to reduced transparency and weakened implementation of labour protections. For companies sourcing from Italy, key factors to consider include the role of subcontracting in their production, the existence and implementation of collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), and the risks of excessive overtime, low wages, irregular contracts, and unsafe working conditions. Especially in smaller workshops and among migrant and undocumented workers, labour exploitation remains a prevalent risk.
Does not have a universal statutory minimum wage, sectoral collective agreements play a central role in setting wages.
Over 300,000 estimated garment workers
217
Factories Fair Wear members source from
19
Fair Wear member brands sourcing from the country
What Fair Wear is doing
How we work locally with partners to address risks and improve working conditions.
Due diligence requires companies to know what is happening in their supply chain. Fair Wear has state of the art risk tools that support brands with identifying and tracking their most urgent risks. In Italy, collaboration with a local stakeholder offers extensive risk identification and validation services based on Fair Wear methodologies. Companies can access detailed, stakeholder-validated country risk information per sector risk and request Fair Wear's Onsite Assessments (Full, Modular and Validation). Companies can also request custom HREDD facilitation support, such as verification activities.
Insight only creates change when you act on it. Fair Wear equips brands with a set of established training modules to raise awareness, address root causes and implement mechanisms for prevention, mitigation and remediation. In Italy, collaboration with a local stakeholder offers companies access to training based on Fair Wear’s methodologies. Companies can request the Fair Wear Onboarding Training for suppliers and workers, which focuses on awareness-raising on workers' rights and support for social dialogue between workers and management. Moreover, companies can request custom HREDD-training.
Staying ahead of risks means knowing about them before they escalate. Fair Wear's grievance mechanism is available in English in Italy, ensuring workers can raise concerns. The mechanism provides an accessible, confidential channel, with findings feeding into Fair Wear's work with brands and suppliers to address root causes.