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According to information provided by the Brazil’s Ministry of Labour and Employment (MTE), the property in West Bahia belongs to Rotavi Industrial Ltda., a company that used vegetal charcoal as its fuel to make light alloy products.
A group of 174* workers was found in conditions analogue to slavery in a charcoal kiln in Jaborandi, in the Far West of the state of Bahia. According to information provided by the mobile group of the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MTE), the property belongs to Rotavi Industrial Ltda.*, based in Barra do Piraí, Rio de Janeiro**, which uses vegetal charcoal as fuel to make light alloy - used in the automobile production chain.
According to labour inspector Klinger Moreira, who led the operation, workers had no legal working papers and were not paid regularly. Part of the food was offered by employers, but complementary items were sold and then discounted of their ‘virtual payment’ - to abusive prices. Two ‘cats’ (illegal labour recruiters and contract work middlemen) acted in the farm located near the border with the state of Goiás, not very far from Posse, Goiás, little more than 300 km from Brazil’s federal capital, Brasília, DF.
Some of the workers reported that they got 50-real ‘advance payments’ from the ‘cats’ ; other said they had been there for three months with absolutely no pay. Rotavi, says Moreira, did not present itself to assume its responsibility for the irregular situation found by the mobile group’s action, which started last Wednesday (27).
The 174 workers that fed the 450 ovens were freed by the inspection team, but they remain in the place in order to be paid by employers. Moreira denounces that ‘cats’ tried to remove people from the place this Saturday (30), but were prevented from doing it by the mobile group.
The leader of the operation informs that representatives of another company (Carvovale) claimed they would respond for the case. According to, however, Rotavi is actually involved in production, and it did not have even a contract with third parties. ‘There can be no talk about outsourcing’, says the labour inspector.
Even after the inspection, workers remained in the place in order to pressure for an answer by the employer. Production was stopped because of the serious situation found : there were not individual protection equipments (IPE) or any sort of care related to workers’ health and safety. Although built with brickwork, lodging facilities were also in degrading conditions : dirty and with problems in bathrooms. Accommodations were located near the ovens, subjecting workers to intoxication by smoke.
Some of the charcoal workers came from Minas Gerais and north-eastern states such as Piauí. Initial estimates point that those responsible for the situation will pay about 350 thousand reais in fines and cancellation of contracts. Moreira says that the wide area of vegetal charcoal production also included eucalyptus plantations to feed the ovens.
There had been at least another public lawsuit against Rotavi by the 3rd Regional Labour Public Attorney, in Minas Gerais, for not fulfilling labour rules for charcoal companies.
The Rotavi Group, which Works in areas of transport and mining, has among its clients large companies such as White Martins, Mannesmann, Votorantim, Gerdau and Metalsider. Initially, the Labour Public Attorney (MPT), through prosecutor Luciano Leivas (who took part in the operation by the mobile group in the wide area of over 36 thousand hectares), filed a request to block 366.2 thousand reais belonging to Rotavi and Carvovale, in order to guarantee the payment of labour rights of the 154 workers. The request was accepted in a provisional decision last Thursday (4) by the Labour Court in Bom Jesus da Lapa, Bahia.
The website Congresso em Foco informed that, in the meanwhile, labour inspectors found 20 more workers hidden by the ‘cats’ in improvised camps in the idle of the woods. With 20 more charcoal workers, the debt to be paid by the employers increased to 460 thousand reais.
Positioning
In a note sent to Repórter Brasil, Rotavi Industrial Ltda. says that ‘it did not take responsibility only because the workers found in the charcoal kilns are not its employees’. The company recognized having ‘created the whole infrastructure for charcoal production’ and that it has a branch in Jaborandi (BA). But the operation of the charcoal factory, according to Rotavi, is ‘outsourced’. With that aim, adds the company, ‘Motocorte Serviços Florestais Ltda was hired, which recently transferred services to another company, identified as J & J Serviços Florestais Ltda, with which Rotavi has no links whatsoever’. According to Rotavi’s board, ‘labour responsibility belongs to the contractor hired to provide services.’
The problem is that, according to findingf of the mobile group, Motocorte, hired by Rotavi, had not been operating for three months and had informally outsourced again the task to J & J Serviços Florestais. That is, inspectors did not find contracts between Motocorte and J & J or between Rotavi and J & J. And even if there were contracts between those companies, Rotavi - as the owner of the area, having created the infrastructure and directly benefiting from production - could be held co-responsible, according to inspectors.
Three charcoal kilns were established by Rotavi Industrial in the town. Two of them, according to the company, ‘have all necessary infrastructure, such as brickwork dormitories, drinking water, and bathrooms, while facilities at the third one are being finished’ and all of them ‘were documented and inspected by the environmental agency in charge’.
According to Rotavi, the company Carvovale was hired to make mechanised timber cutting. The timber is used for splinters (which is also used as fuel). After the tree is cut, the tip and the stump are left, and will be used to make vegetable charcoal. To give those tips and stumps some use, Rotavi created charcoal kilns and outsourced their production.
Rotavi Industrial refused to take action, saying it does not agree with the description of situation in which workers were found ands "repudiates the attitude of the Ministry of Labour’s Mobile Group, which coerced workers to remain in the facilities in order to pressure the company’. All 174 people remain in the place, with provisions bought with resources of a mobile group’s fund for emergencies.