Slave labor: Agro dominates dirty list – 04/05/2023 – Market

Agribusiness companies are the majority in the new dirty list of slave labor, released by the Labor Inspection Secretariat of the MTE (Ministry of Labor and Employment) this Wednesday (5).

In all, 289 employers, including individuals and legal entities, are part of the current list of people caught working in a situation analogous to slavery. In comparison with the previous list, 132 companies or people joined the register, and 17 were excluded.

The list was the target of complaints from employers about the methodology used to create the list, who even resorted to the STF (Federal Supreme Court) to overthrow it. Currently, the names are only included after the companies are notified of the existence of a lawsuit against them, with deadlines for defense, and if the characterization of a situation analogous to that of slavery is confirmed by a second administrative instance.

Of the 289 employers on the current list, 172 have Cnaes (National Classification of Economic Activities) of rural activities, such as coffee cultivation, beef and dairy cattle raising, charcoal production and extraction of non-timber products, which may include, for example, collection of hearts of palm and carnauba.

In the list released by the Ministry of Labor and Employment, there are still 38 employers whose economic activities cannot be identified through the Cnae. Of these, however, 37 have names linked to field activities (farm, farm) or are quarries, sawmills and coal plants with addresses in the rural area.

The Abag (Brazilian Agribusiness Association) says that proven acts analogous to slavery have their “total indignation”.

“It is up to the Brazilian authorities, entities, companies and society to maintain strict vigilance to denounce and dismantle criminal groups that maintain this degrading offense against human beings, taking advantage of the shortcomings and naivety of humble people who need a job to survive” , says the entity, in a note about the existence of cases of slave labor in the countryside.

The list of employers caught, according to the folder, with workers in degrading conditions and analogous to the situation of slavery also includes companies and people linked to civil construction, restaurants, retail trade and domestic services.

Rural activities are also, according to the list released this Wednesday, among those with the highest number of workers rescued in each establishment. Among the 15 companies or individual employers with more employees in a degrading situation, in the evaluation of the inspections, 13 are from the agro.

However, the largest number of workers in a single rescue was in the retail trade – an accommodation where 74 people were rescued in 2020, in the Federal District, according to the list.

Back and forth to the blacklist of slave labor

The dirty list of employers was created by interministerial decree 4, of May 11, 2016.

During the Michel Temer (MDB) administration, in 2017, there was an attempt to make it more difficult to disclose the list of registered companies. Among the changes, it provided that the Minister of Labor would have to authorize disclosure. The ordinance that created this lock, however, was less than ten days in force.

One of the complaints from employers at the time was the lack of a specific act of infraction of work analogous to slavery so that companies could defend themselves, recalls labor inspector Maurício Krepsky, from Detrae (Division of Inspection for the Eradication of Slave Labor) of the MTE.

What was left, from the attempts to change the register, was the creation of this infraction notice and the rule of second instance, which guarantees companies and individuals the right to defend themselves administratively.

After the inspection action, the employer is notified of the existence of the administrative process and is given deadlines to defend itself. The inclusion in the dirty list only happens if the characterization of the exploitation of labor in a situation similar to that of slavery is confirmed in the second administrative instance, in Brasília (DF).

In 2020, the Federal Supreme Court confirmed, in an action filed by Abrainc (Brazilian Association of Real Estate Incorporators) against the list, that the registration is constitutional.

According to the Ministry of Labor and Employment, disclosing the list gives transparency to administrative inspection acts. In a note, Minister Luiz Marinho, holder of the portfolio, said that the government has sought a national understanding of awareness for the eradication of work analogous to slavery.