Volkswagen denies compensation in case of slave labor – 03/29/2023 – Market

Volkswagen left this Wednesday (29) the negotiating table created with the Public Ministry of Labor to discuss the occurrence of slave labor and other violations of human rights on a farm which it owned in the state of Pará.

The cases investigated by the MPT allegedly occurred at the Vale do Rio Cristalino farm, known as the Volkswagen Farm, located in the municipality of Santana do Araguaia, in southern Pará, during the 1970s and 1980s, when Brazil was still living under the military dictatorship ( 1964-1985). Volkswagen do Brasil says it “does not take a position on ongoing processes”.

Labor attorney Rafael Garcia, coordinator of the special group investigating the case, says that the company rejected the proposal to pay R$ 165 million in compensation to 14 workers identified as victims. For that amount, they would also be used to assist in the search for other victims and family members of former farm workers.

The judicialization of the case, initially discarded by the MPT, which was betting on an agreement, was analyzed again. The attorneys involved with the investigation will still define which measures are applicable and do not rule out, according to Garcia, other forums in addition to the Brazilian Justice – Volkswagen is of German origin.

According to Garcia, company representatives insisted on the argument that Volkswagen is not responsible for what happened on the property. In November, at the second meeting between the attorneys and the company, lawyers delivered a written document in which they argue that the occurrence is old and that other people were involved with what was happening on the farm.

“We regret the attitude of Volkswagen, which disrespects workers who were enslaved, had their dignity and released encroachers inside their property for more than ten years”, said the prosecutor this Wednesday, after the meeting.

The Public Ministry of Labor calculates that the Volkswagen farm has received, in current values, R$ 700 million in public resources for the development of the undertaking.

In the evaluation of the attorneys who acted in the investigation, at least a hundred workers were subjected to degrading situations on the farm that belonged to the automaker. In the testimonies collected by the Labor MP, there are even reports of murders that took place on the property.

The MPT considers that controlling the activities of workers in clearing pastures and cutting down forests would not have been possible without the company getting in touch with the living and working conditions of these employees. There was also armed surveillance.

Volkswagen’s refusal to continue negotiations took prosecutors by surprise. “We were surprised by the company’s posture. Now we are going to evaluate and take measures in the forums in Brazil and abroad”, says Garcia, from the MPT.

The attorney considered that the value proposed in the agreement was reasonable in relation to the size of the company. The R$ 165 million, in this Wednesday’s quotation, is less than 30 million euros.

In 2020, referring to another case, Volkswagen do Brasil committed to allocate BRL 36.3 million to former company employees who were arrested, persecuted or tortured during the military dictatorship. The payment concluded three civil investigations at the Federal Public Ministry, the São Paulo Public Ministry and the Labor Public Ministry.

UNDERSTAND THE CASE

In 2019, the Public Ministry of Labor received documentation reporting what the prosecutors considered to be “situations of submission of workers to degrading working conditions”.

The material was organized by Father Ricardo Rezende Figueira, who was coordinator of the CPT (Pastoral Land Commission) for the region of Araguaia and Tocantins.

After three years analyzing the dossier that Figueira put together, the MPT understood that there were grounds for initiating an investigation. The priest is the author of a book on slave labor.

The Volkswagen Farm had, according to the MPT, more than 139 thousand hectares. The native vegetation was transformed into a pasture area. To do this work, the cats (as slave labor recruiters are called) recruited workers from small towns in Mato Grosso, Maranhão and Goiás, according to the MPT.