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Brazil’s Employment Ministry has fined both agri-food giants in an employment case that was ‘analogous to modern slavery.’ The Intercept Brasil website, in cooperation with the Reporter Brasil platform reported on this case on 28 January 2019. Prosecutors have identified 28 different street vendors of dairy products operating within a credit-based reselling system and in which those working go regularly unpaid. Transported into the poorest areas of the country these workers live together in unfit housing conditions and work up to 14 hours a day. Federal police inquiries found that both multinational companies have been profiting from this practice (by up to the equivalent of 2% of their annual revenues) and that it was a situation of ‘deliberate blindness’ to the trafficking that has been taking place in the São Palo region most probably for years. For omitting to have implemented necessary monitoring along their business chains, both companies that directly delivered dairy products (yoghurts), oftentimes close to maturity, to the re-selling network have received fines for collusion of €43,000 (BRL 185,000 for Danone) and €32,000 (BRL 139,000 for Nestlé). Following the investigations, both companies have ceased commercial ties with the local resellers.
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