A hundred steps from the warehouse. The anti-union partnership between business and organized crime. An extreme case study in the logistics sector.

Organized crime is strongly interested in the logistics sector because it allows for the movement of illegal products. To complement, trade unions’ presence, traditionally associated with legality, is recent in this sector, partly because logistics companies frequently exploit outsourcing to circumvent institutional and regulatory constraints in workforce governance, excluding unions from workplaces. Against this backdrop, this research aims to investigate what impact the recent and growing unionization of the logistic sector - characterized by a strong presence of organized crime - has had on the relationships between companies and organized crime. Empirically, this study is based on an extreme case study regarding the interaction between a logistics multinational – GlobalHubs – and its subcontractor – Logisticservice – in one of the most important logistics hubs in Northern Italy, where the presence of the mafia has been reported. This study integrates multiple sources including semi-structured interviews, analysis of judicial documents and examination of newspaper articles. It emerges that, to end an intense strike, GlobalHubs searched for help from the head of Logisticservice to leverage his connections with a mafia criminal group, which violently repress the strike. From these events, a new representation of the firm emerges, which increasingly appears as a conscious and active partner of organized crime that may become a key player in the logistics sector.

Keywords: organized crime; unionization; silencing workers; union repression; logistics; extreme case study

Tea Maistro, Anna Mori, Marco Guerci, A cento passi dal magazzino. Il sodalizio anti-sindacale tra impresa e criminalità organizzata. Un caso di studio estremo nel settore logistico in "STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI " 1/2025, pp 67-95, DOI: 10.3280/SO2025-001003