Company hired by the Air Force is convicted of slave labor in hangar construction

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The Labor Court sentenced a company contracted by the Air Force to pay collective and individual compensation due to conditions similar to slavery to which workers on a project at the Anápolis Air Base (GO) were subjected.

Seven workers from Shox do Brasil Construções were rescued in November 2020 by the mobile group to combat slave labor, formed by labor inspectors and MPT (Public Ministry of Labour).

The workers were starving at the accommodation in Anápolis and even fried tanajura ants to eat, according to inspection documents.

The group was working on the construction of a hangar at the Air Base intended to be a maintenance space for the KC-390 cargo plane, one of the Air Force’s bets in terms of air logistics.

The contract with Shox is worth R$ 15.3 million. When the workers were rescued, 30% of the metallic structure was ready.

After the publication of the report, the Air Force stated, in a note, that it follows the law for contracting and inspecting services. “FAB [Força Aérea Brasileira] is not a defendant and follows the process only as an interested third party. Any condemnation is directed at the company, not the FAB.”

The contract is still in progress, said the Air Force. “The FAB repudiates any breach of current legislation and permanently monitors the execution of the signed contract”, quotes the note.

Shox’s lawyer, Roseval Rodrigues Filho, stated that the company does not agree with the imputation of a condition analogous to slavery and with the sentence in the first instance of Justice. He said he will appeal the decision.

According to Rodrigues, the accusation of inadequate conditions does not refer to the work inside the Air Base, but to the accommodation of the workers.

“The housing was outside the Air Base and the Air Base’s supervision,” said the lawyer. He also said that the work was cleared the next day and that it continues to be carried out.

In the course of the process, the Labor Court even determined a block of values ​​with the Air Force command, as a way of guaranteeing the payment of an eventual indemnity, in response to a request from the MPT. The blockade was overturned by the Justice itself, before the sentence that condemned Shox to pay damages.

Based on the MPT’s action, Labor Judge Nayara dos Santos Souza, who works in Anápolis, ordered Shox to pay compensation for collective moral damage in the amount of R$500,000. The money must be allocated to the FAT (Worker Support Fund).

Compensation for individual moral damage is R$ 5,000, in addition to termination of employment, cost of road tickets and food for the return of workers to their states of origin.

Shox’s partners, according to the sentence, must stop using the labor of migrant workers in future ventures and stop reducing workers to the condition of slaves, through submission to degrading work.

The case in court has a total value of R$ 1 million, according to the sentence signed on the 26th.

“The evidentiary complex demonstrates not only the precarious conditions of the accommodation but also irregularities in the supply of food to the workers, leaving therefore the work in conditions analogous to slavery, in the form of degrading work”, said the judge.

“The unlawful attitudes perpetrated by the defendant characterize disrespect for the dignity of the worker and the community in which they are inserted. The indemnity serves as the minimum compensation for the moral damage suffered”, he said in the sentence.

The workers lived in an accommodation that is 4 km from the Air Base. They performed the service daily, including Saturdays, Sundays and holidays frequently, as verified by the inspectors.

In the house where they were installed, the tax auditors and prosecutors found a lack of minimum conditions of accommodation and hygiene, in addition to the lack of food.

During the operation, auditors were informed that contract inspectors, working for the Air Force, were already aware of what was happening in the accommodation.

The space was the responsibility of an outsourced company. With the termination of the contract with this company, the accommodation became an assignment of the main contractor, Shox, according to the inspection team.

The contractor was also responsible for hiring part of the workers.

The rescued workers were from Sergipe, Pernambuco and Paraná. They stated that they only received meals on the days they worked and that, on different occasions, they did not have anything to eat in the accommodation.

Workers were at risk of electric shock, amputations, fractures, lacerations and falling from high points of the metallic structure assembled inside the Anápolis Air Base. These risks were detailed in survey reports. The hangar work came to be embargoed.

Source: Folha

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