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Slaves of Steel Update: |
Worse than cattle
Even in the charcoal plants where there is no slave labor, legislation is systematically ignored. The workers do not have individual protective equipment, there is no lodging or medical assistance. They do not have signed working papers or rights to legal benefits. "It is a scary reality", said Labor Prosecutor in São Luís (MA), Maurício Pessoa Lima. "At inspections conducted in charcoal plants, I saw cattle living in better conditions than the workers". In a report on an inspection of charcoal plants linked to Simasa and Margusa conducted from March 8 - 17, the Labor Prosecutor Luercy Lino Lopes pointed to the direct involvement of the iron manufacturers with slave labor. Lopes wrote. "In general, at all the charcoal plants inspected we found...that the work is conducted in conditions that are absolutely debasing and degrading, in total offense to the workers' dignity, which, according to what I understand from the current language of Article 149 of the Brazilian Penal Code, typifies conduct characterized as a reduction to a condition analogous to slave labor". In another passage, the prosecutor added: "Rarely is a worker found with Individual Protective Equipment; they work amid coal soot and smoke, without shirts or with a shirt that is completely ripped and filthy; in shorts and without boots and gloves. In none of the charcoal plants visited did we find drinking water". A recurring problem
The following year, for the first time, the names of the iron manufacturers linked to large economic groups were found in the reports from the Mobile Inspection Group. This is the case of the Pindaré iron company, part of Queiroz Galvão and based in Açailândia (MA). The company appears in reports of the Mobile Inspection Group from 1996, 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2003. Simasa, also part of the Queiroz Galvão Group, appeared for the first time in 2002, and has been a regular since then. Margusa, purchased by Gerdau on December 2, 2003, appeared in March 2004. Various reports from the Mobile Inspection Group do not characterize the situations found as slave labor, but as "degrading labor", which is different. Degrading labor conditions are those in which workers do not have signed working papers, do not have protective equipment, sleep in sheds without walls, do not have access to drinking water, medical services, holidays, or a 13th salary. In nearly 100% of the cases there is no bathroom in the workplace. Slave labor, according to the ILO, involves coercion and denial
of liberty. In 2003, with a change in article 149 of the Penal Code,
that which was described as degrading labor came to be interpreted
by some specialists as slavery. This is the case of extremely degrading
situations such as those found by the Mobile Inspection Group at
charcoal production units, according to the Labor Prosecutor Maurício
Pessoa Lima.
Labor Prosecutor Luercy Lino Lopes, in his March report, did not hesitate to accuse Simasa and Margusa of involvement with slave labor. "Given the impression that I had of the location, the situation of the charcoal plants, above all in Pará, is very serious and demands urgent measures. I think that an immediate campaign against the iron companies is needed", he maintained. Lopes, who accompanied the work conducted by the Mobile Investigation
Group for nine days and visited eight charcoal producers in the
municipalities of Dom Eliseu (PA) and Pastos Bons (MA), reported
the existence of 37 workers at the Simasa charcoal production unit
and 20 at the Margusa charcoal operation. According to the report:
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This report is part of the publication "Observatório Social Em Revista" - # 6 - June 2004 - Florianópolis, Brazil English version: Jeffrey Hoff Published by Observatório Social
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The
use of slave labor involving iron manufacturers is not recent. In
1995, the year in which the Ministry of Labor created the Special
Mobile Inspection Group, four iron producers located in Mato Grosso
and Minas Gerais were accused of maintaining slave laborers in charcoal
plants. In Mato Grosso, the small city of Ribas do Rio Pardo became
a center of slave labor, with complaints filed in various economic
sectors. 
