15 employees rescued from slave-like labor conditions in Minas Gerais.

Brasil de Fato -  The need for employment, coupled with false promises, deceives thousands of people every year, who end up subjected to degrading working conditions. This was the case with 15 men and boys rescued in Muzambinho, southern Minas Gerais, last week. They had been working for months harvesting coffee on the Córrego da Prata farm, in terrible conditions.

The house where they were sheltered was literally "falling apart." The porch roof had already collapsed, and the end seemed imminent for the interior ceiling. The sleeping, hygiene, and food conditions were inhumane. Initially, one of the young men recounts, they even went three days working without eating because the employer provided neither the stove, nor the gas, nor the food he had promised.

The illegal conditions extended to the work equipment. In coffee harvesting, a machine is needed to perform the work, costing an average of R$ 2. Each farm worker was forced to buy their own and pay for the gasoline they used. This is a completely irregular situation. Article 458 of the Federal Constitution states that work tools are not part of the salary and must be provided by the employer.

One of the workers had R$1 deducted from his pay for a two-week production period. He received practically nothing from that payment. "But what angered me the most was the theft in the production," says one of the young men, aged 22. It worked like this: they harvested 55 sacks of coffee, according to their calculations, but in the day's count the manager recorded 30. "There was no point in arguing. He would start yelling and hitting things," he says. With this and other frauds, the manager reduced the commissions he paid them.

Congressman's family

The rescue team from the Ministry of Labor, along with the Federal Police and the Public Prosecutor's Office, found 15 people on the Córrego da Prata farm and classified the work as "labor analogous to slavery." They were removed from the site that same afternoon, and the Ministry of Labor began negotiations with the employer for the correct payment of all rights.

According to officials, the farm in question is owned by Maria Júlia Pereira, sister-in-law of state deputy Emidinho Madeira (PSB). This is the third time the deputy's family has been cited for slave labor. Emídio Madeira, the deputy's father, has 112 cases pending with the Ministry of Labor for infractions. In 2015, he was cited for keeping 60 workers in conditions analogous to slavery on the Santa Efigênia farm in Bom Jesus da Penha, also in Minas Gerais. In 2016, he was cited again, this time for keeping 14 workers in conditions analogous to slavery on the Boa Vista and Cafundó farms, in the same city.