Paola's story: died in the vineyard for 27 euros

Italy is a country in difficulty, despite what politicians may declare using indicators built on data whose origins and calculations are often impossible to know.

Italy is a country rich in history and achievements, but also a country rich in "stories."

Stories of immigrants who died off our coasts or on our soil, stories of politicians who profit from others' misfortunes, stories of those who take the wrong path and end up caught in the vortex of illegal activities; then there are the stories of young Italians who, despite impressive résumés, cannot find stable work – they are too young to be given the chance to take on responsibilities, and tomorrow they will be too old to stay in companies. Stories of young people who emigrate and succeed abroad – brain drain, they call it. Stories of fathers and mothers who struggle to feed their children. Stories of hatred from those who, blinded by ignorance, blame "the foreigner" who comes to steal their jobs, forgetting even the history of the Italian people themselves, who so often went abroad to seek their fortune.

Today, however, we will tell the story of Paola, who lived in this reality and worked in the vineyard.

Paola's story begins with an alarm at two in the morning, 157 kilometers in a minivan with heavy eyelids, and a bit of conversation with her coworkers.

When they arrived at work, the heat was brutal, and so was the exhaustion – and there in that vineyard, at a winery in Andria, Paola gave out and collapsed: nothing could be done.

She left home to work and came back dead – a heart attack, or "something more; she was broken by fatigue," says the regional Flai Cgil.

No investigation, no autopsy: "She immediately became a ghost, with no news leaking out for weeks. It seems the woman never even made it to the hospital. The hearse took her directly from the field to the cemetery's cold storage. She was buried the next day with the authorization of the duty magistrate. The public prosecutor did not go to the scene because, according to what the Andria police reported, the forensic doctor's opinion was that it was a natural death – perhaps heatstroke from the excessive heat," declares Giuseppe Deleonardis, regional secretary of Flai.

There are no uprisings, despite the many women – around 6,000 every night – who travel to work in the vineyards: people are afraid of losing their jobs. We are not in the third world; we are in Italy.

Paola came from an area devastated by Ilva; for fifteen years she had broken her back among the vines. She left us during the acinellatura phase, which would have been followed, a couple of weeks later, by the manual harvest and the sorting into crates.

Fifteen years of work, a minimum of seven hours of labor, 40 degrees of heat, 27 euros: Goodbye Paola – may the earth, at least that, rest lightly upon you, lighter than the burden you bore for years.

We are the slaves of the new era – the ones without chains.