Labor inspection has 45% of vacant positions – 03/19/2023 – Market

Almost half of the labor inspector posts are vacant, bringing the structure responsible for overseeing compliance with labor legislation to its lowest number in 28 years.

Currently, only 1,949 auditors are active among the 3,644 placements for the function. The last public tender for the position was held in 2013.

Recent rescues of workers in situations analogous to slavery have highlighted the activity of these public servants.

In rescue operations, they work together with other agencies, in a mobile group set up in 1995, when Brazil recognized the existence of contemporary slave labor and, from then on, started to fight it.

This group includes the Labor and Federal Public Ministries and the Federal and Federal Highway Police.

The work of labor inspectors, however, is not limited to combating modern slave labor. Collecting the FGTS (Senior Severance Indemnity Fund), verifying health and safety conditions at companies and combating informality and child labor are also within the scope of these public servants’ responsibilities.

Bob Machado, president of Sinait (National Union of Labor Tax Auditors), says that, despite the auditors’ efforts, there is a limit to the volume of work and the capacity to organize operations.

“The reduction [de pessoal] represents a greater number of citizens subjected to the risk of work analogous to slavery, child labor, work accidents and even deaths and amputations. Supervising and combating all of this are duties of the labor inspectorate”, says Machado.

The union leader states that, unlike what happens in other areas and segments of the economy, labor inspection is little impacted by technological innovations, since the most important part of the activity takes place in person, in inspections of the workplaces.

In cases of suspected work analogous to slavery, operations are usually carried out based on complaints made to the Public Ministry of Labor, on Dial 100 or through the Ipê system, where reports can be recorded anonymously.

This year, already under the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), the Labor Inspection returned to the status of secretariat, under the umbrella of the Ministry of Labor and Employment.

Until last week, the secretariat was still vacant. On Friday (17), auditor Luiz Felipe Brandão de Mello, who had already held the position in 2012, was appointed.

The request for holding a public tender to increase the number of inspection teams was presented in the first meetings of the auditors with members of the new government.

The Ministry of Labor and Employment was approached to speak about the matter, but did not respond until the conclusion of this text. Bob Machado, from the auditors’ union, says that the government understands the need to hire personnel. “The signage is still for the competition this year, but we know that the blanket is short and the demands, many.”

The reduction in the labor tax audit staff affects operations planning, even leading to a certain statistical distortion.

For example, states with more cases of rescuing workers in degrading or slavery-like conditions may not, in fact, have more such situations. The higher number may just be a reflection of the fact that there are more inspectors working in that region.

This is what the auditors point out about the states of Minas Gerais and Pará. The first tends to be at the top of the list of those with the most rescue cases. In 2022, of the 2,575 workers rescued from slave labor in Brazil, 41.7% were in Minas Gerais.

In addition to accounting for almost half of rescues, Minas Gerais also recorded in 2022 a 37% increase in the number of people located in conditions analogous to slavery compared to the previous year.

The picture is explained by the number of inspectors –there are 156 working in the state, second only to Rio and São Paulo– and by the profile of the economy, which includes intensive agricultural crops in temporary labor.

Pará, on the other hand, had 92 workers rescued in conditions analogous to slavery in 2022. There, according to the Ministry of Labor and Employment, 52 inspectors are active.

For labor attorney Italvar Medina, vice-coordinator at Conaete (MPT’s National Coordination for Eradicating Slave Labor and Combating Human Trafficking), the number is explained by the lag in inspection.

“This lack of auditors is felt mainly in the states of the North, where there are large territorial extensions. If inspections are increased there, the number of rescues will increase”, he says.

Historically, the state of Pará leads the ranking of redemptions. The recent reduction cannot be seen, according to the representative of the Public Ministry of Labor, as an improvement in working conditions in that region.

Since 1995, when the mobile group was created, 60,251 workers have been rescued in conditions analogous to slavery. In Pará there were 13,463 of them.

Bob Machado, from the auditors union, defends that, in a year like 2023, the precariousness of labor inspection has even worse effects for workers.

“We are in a post-pandemic moment and Covid has greatly deepened inequalities. We had an increase in people in food insecurity and in conditions of social vulnerability, which is the main source of precarious work.”

Conatrae (National Commission for the Eradication of Slave Labor) made two notes calling attention to the damage to the policy to combat slave labor. This commission is linked to the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship.

Minister Luiz Marinho, of Labor and Employment, said a few days ago in São Paulo that the ministry’s intention is not to have “an inspector on every corner”, but to ensure that companies carry out a type of self-regulation. “That they work with the logic of respect for people and the employment contract,” he said.