Charles Nisz

Yesterday (24th), the Federal Court decided to hear accusations filed by the Federal Public Prosecutor and will prosecute the owners of Pagrisa - the largest ethanol producer in Pará - for holding 1,064 workers in a regime of forced labor.

Murilo, Fernão and Marcos Villela Zancaner will be charged, based on a report filed by the Mobile Inspection Group of the State Labor Prosecutors Office.  The workers, most of them sugarcane cutters, worked under degrading conditions at the company's facilities in Ulianópolis (417 km from Belém).

The mobile unit stated in its report that the workers were captives on the property because of debts contracted that they could not pay off with the wages they received.

The document provides details on the conditions the workers were subjected to: they slept in makeshift lodgings, not receiving any potable water during the working day and drank warm and dirty water taken from a water tank truck parked in the sugarcane field.

Sanitary facilities were minimal, unhygienic and poorly maintained.  The poor quality and conservation of foods and the fact they were prepared in a dirty kitchen caused many workers gastrointestinal disorders.

To the MPF, the seriousness of the crimes committed by the Zancaner brothers justifies the levying of the maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.  The analysis by six federal attorneys, at the request of the MPF, considered evidence sufficient regarding "degrading working and housing conditions, collectively inflicted on manual laborers in the sugarcane plantations".

According to the company attorney, interviewed by the newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo, there is no concrete evidence of forced or slave labor.  He admitted problems existed, as in any other company.  Pagrisa denies the accusations and says that the MPF only took the inspectors' report into consideration in formulating the charges.

Inspection
Inspection activities to combat slave labor were suspended on Friday under the allegation of pressure from Senators in favor of the company.  Ruth Vilela - Labor Surveillance Secretary - in an interview with the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, alleged "insecurity regarding activities conducted by the Ministry of Labor".

Last Thursday (20th), Senators Jarbas Vasconcelos (PSDB-PE), Flexa Ribeiro (PSDB-PA), Kátia Abreu (DEM-TO), Cícero Lucena (PSDB-PB) and Romeu Tuma (DEM-SP), members of the independent commission formed to address the case, visited the plantation's facilities.  At the end of the visit, the group's spokesperson stated that working conditions on the plantation were adequate and placed the mobile unit's work in check.

Government agencies and civil society organizations involved in combating slave labor in Brazil denounced the maneuver by a group of Senators who strive to de-legitimize the work of the federal government's mobile labor inspection group.

The stance taken by the group of Senators was criticized in the Senate itself.  In an official communiqué, Senator José Nery (PSol-PA), chairman of the Ad Hoc Subcommission on Slave Labor, was adamant: "Going completely against national efforts to combat slave labor, the Independent Senate Commission decided to unconditionally align itself to the interests of the company accused, without any of the plurality required in such a case".

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