ALESSANDRO NATO – ELISABETTO TATI’
Together with the economic crisis (2008) and the sovereign debt crisis (2011), the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted how the dependence of social rights on a formal citizenship status or resident status should be considered as a restriction on the access and effective enjoyment of social rights and comprehensive social protection, especially by vulnerable people (i.e. cross-border EU citizens, migrant citizens of third countries, precarious low-skill and low-income workers). The paper will look specifically to agricultural workers with an irregular work status and/or an illegal immigration status. Focusing on one of the most disadvantaged conditions – illegal immigrants with seasonal jobs in the agricultural sector – the expectation is that a higher number of variables will enter the picture. If a solution can be imagined for the least advantaged, it would presumably work for less disadvantaged people as well, both at the national and supranational levels. The paper will proceed in two steps. In the first, it will analyze the problem of the right to accommodation for seasonal workers in agriculture from the perspective of the supranational level of the European Union, studying in detail the criticalities of the EU legal system. In the second, it will examine the same topic from the perspective of the national level, using Italy as a case-study. In the conclusions, the paper will propose some recommendations to improve the effective enjoyment of social rights more in general and the right to accommodation of transnational seasonal workers in agriculture more specifically