The Criminalization of Social Protest in Italy: The Case of Precarious Workers Against “Il padrone di merda” (the “Shitty” Boss)

The chapter explores how the mobilization of precarious workers in Bologna (Italy) was criminalized. The workers operated under the labels "Il padrone di merda" (the "shitty boss") and “Maschere Bianche” (“White Masks”) between 2019 and 2021. The chapter is divided into two sections. The first aims to reconstruct the origin of the methods, claims, and peculiarities of the protest by examining materials disseminated by the group on social media, while also considering newspaper articles addressing the protest. The second section, based on a narrative analysis of legal documents, examines the criminalization process to understand how the "social danger" is constructed and narrated by the criminal justice actors involved. This case study sheds light on the most controversial aspects of the criminalization process of precarious workers in contemporary Italy.