Labour, today: what has (not) changed
An update on labour exploitation, modern-day slavery and human rights
On May 1st, we celebrate labour. But it may be more honest to look at how that work exists.
Because in 2026, labour exploitation has not disappeared. It has become more complex, more fragmented — and easier to ignore.
The system hasn’t changed. It has scaled.
Investigations into global supply chains continue to confirm what is often treated as an exception: exploitation is not on the margins of production. It sits at its centre.
From garments to electronics, companies still achieve cost efficiency, in part, through pressure that travels down the chain — until it reaches those with the least power to resist it.
Labour — What the system depends on
Recent benchmarks by KnowTheChain, a project of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, offer a useful lens.
Across industries, performance remains low. In the food and beverage sector, reports from Brazil’s coffee production describe working weeks stretching beyond legal limits, degrading living conditions, and cases of debt bondage. In technology manufacturing, only a handful of companies score above average — and none adequately respond to specific allegations of forced labour.
Even where policies exist, enforcement is inconsistent.
And the model itself — particularly just-in-time production — continues to create conditions where abuse becomes more likely, not less.
The workers the system relies on most
Migrant labour sits at the core of many of these sectors: construction, agriculture, logistics, care.
And yet, it is also where vulnerability concentrates.
Many workers arrive already in debt, having paid high recruitment fees for jobs that do not match what was promised. Once employed, their position is often tied to temporary visas, employer sponsorship, or informal arrangements that make leaving difficult and speaking out risky.
What follows is not always visible, but it is consistent: wage theft, excessive hours, unsafe conditions, restricted movement.
Between 2022 and 2025, authorities and researchers have recorded thousands of cases globally, with agriculture and construction showing the highest concentration. Most involve violations that are not exceptional, but systemic — embedded in how labour is managed, priced, and controlled.
Workers are essential to the system. But remain structurally exposed within it.
Italy: luxury and labour exploitation, side by side
Closer to home, investigations between 2025 and 2026 have made this contradiction harder to ignore.
In subcontracted workshops supplying major luxury brands, authorities uncovered what they described as “heavy exploitation” of migrant workers — often underpaid, sometimes undocumented, producing goods sold at exponentially higher prices.
At the same time, some brand units have been placed under administration due to labour abuses, while others have cut large numbers of suppliers following violations.
These are not isolated incidents.
Prosecutors have pointed instead to a “generalised manufacturing method”— a system where responsibility fragments across layers of subcontracting, and where visibility fades as production moves further away from the brand.
Luxury, in this context, does not sit apart from exploitation.
It can exist alongside it.
The pressure behind the product
Speed drives part of this dynamic. The rise of ultra-fast fashion has intensified cost pressure across supply chains, forcing suppliers into continuous price reductions and unstable production cycles. Those at the top transfer downward what they cannot absorb — through lower wages, longer hours, and compromised conditions.
This is not an unintended outcome. It is the economic logic of scale and acceleration.
Transparency, but on whose terms?
There are signs of movement.
The European Union is advancing toward stricter supply chain traceability, and some brands have begun mapping their networks more systematically. In Italy, a recent agreement introduced a voluntary system for suppliers to disclose labour conditions and obtain certification.
But the key word remains: voluntary.
Transparency is still, in many cases, a choice — not an obligation. And beyond the first tier of suppliers, visibility remains limited.
At the same time, new regulations are emerging globally. Investigations into forced labour are increasing, and legislative frameworks are slowly taking shape.
But the pace of regulation does not yet match the speed of production.
What remains unchanged
This creates a familiar contradiction.
Even as sustainability becomes a dominant narrative, labour conditions often remain secondary:
- supply chains extend beyond clear accountability
- companies regularly outsource responsibility
- “green” transitions risk, excluding the very workers they depend on
In fact, what is presented as progress does not always translate into protection.
What May 1st should remind us
In conclusion, labour exploitation today is not hidden because it is rare. It is hidden because it is structural.
It exists in subcontracting.
In pricing models.
In the distance—geographical and economic—between brands and workers.
And often, in the gap between what is communicated and what is practised.
On a day that celebrates workers, the question is not only how far we have come.
It is also: who remains invisible in the system we continue to participate in?
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