Organic coffee is condemned to indemnify workers – 07/21/2023 – Market

The Minas Gerais organic coffee producer Fazendas Klem was sentenced to pay a total of R$ 105,000 in moral damages to seven employees who denounced precarious working conditions in last year’s coffee harvest.

In the sentence issued last Monday (10), the labor court judge of Manhuaçu (MG) Hitler Eustasio Machado Oliveira stated that the victims —three women and four men— had to reside in a place without hygiene, safety and comfort, without drinking water and a place to eat, in addition to not using adequate protective equipment for work on the work fronts.

Both the defense of Fazendas Klem and that of the victimized workers intend to appeal the decision.

“With all due respect to the judgment and understanding of the judge who issued it, we do not understand that the decision was fair with the evidence produced during the procedural instruction”, says the coffee producer in a message sent by email to Sheet.

The workers, from Caetanos, Bahia, were rescued in July 2022 during an inspection by the MTE (Ministry of Labor and Employment) on a property owned by the producer in the city of Manhumirim, neighboring Manhuaçu, in Minas Gerais. According to the folder, they were found in conditions similar to those of slaves.

Fazendas Klem was one of the few coffee producers in Brazil to bear the seal of the Rainforest Alliance, an international NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) that certifies sustainable agricultural producers around the world. Among the practices considered sustainable by the NGO are good working conditions and occupational health and safety.

After the assessment by the Ministry of Labor, however, the producer lost the seal. It also displays the organic product certificate from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the special coffee quality control seal from the Associação de Cafés Especiais do Brasil on social media.

With the MTE action against the producer still ongoing, at the subpoena stage, the group of workers filed another lawsuit asking for the payment of moral damages, supported by Adere-MG (Articulation of Rural Employees of the State of Minas Gerais) and accompanied by the NGO Conectas Human Rights.

According to Conectas, which acts politically and legally in the country for equal rights, the workers’ action is exemplary for facing a company with several certifications from controlling bodies.

The initial petition asked for the cancellation of the certificates issued and their removal from the official pages of Fazendas Klem, which was disregarded by the judge.

In addition, the workers’ lawyer, Maria Inês Correa De Cerqueira César Targa, requested compensation in the amount of R$ 85,000 for each one due to labor irregularities and another R$ 135,000 each for submission to work similar to that of slavery.

Judge Hitler Eustasio did not analyze the accusations of slave labor, on the grounds that the decision was not up to him, and determined the payment of R$ 15,000 per individual, which totaled R$ 105,000 in compensation.

Klem continues to respond to the infringement notices issued by the Ministry of Labor and Employment, which accuse it of subjecting workers to conditions analogous to slavery.

The company claims that the conviction of this second, for moral damages, cannot be seen as evidence that there were failures in the magnitude claimed by the workers. “Proof of this is the tiny amount of the penalty applied compared to what is required by the workers.”

And he completes that, despite possible flaws, there are no elements characterizing work analogous to slavery.

According to a tax auditor from the portfolio accompanying the case, the conviction for moral damages strengthens the ministry’s position and was favorable to workers, since it determines greater compensation than the average offered by the Public Ministry of Labor based on the Terms of Adjustment of Conduct with employers.

Already the coordinator of Adere, Jorge Ferreira, says that he advises workers to make an appeal to improve the sentence. According to him, the decision “sends the message that the crime of slave labor pays”.

“There is no way to accept that the labor court, in this case of the Klem farms, does not issue a decision that actually comes to punish the modern slaveholder in an exemplary way, and with that repair the real damages to the workers”, he says.