Ricardo Rezende Figueira documented and brought forward testimony from workers abused during ranching operations linked to Volkswagen Brazil from 1974 to 1986. Workers were geographically isolated, ensnared by debt, sickened by malaria and forced to toil under threat of violence. Contractors overseeing the operations were among the Amazon frontier's most notorious and brutal figures. On August 29, a Brazilian court held Volkswagen Brazil liable for those contractors' actions and referenced contemporary slave labor in its ruling. The Labor Ministry initiated the case and secured a judgment requiring the company to pay the equivalent of $30 million to an anti-slave labor organization. Volkswagen Brazil intends to appeal.
Last month, The Washington Post published a story that was literally decades in the making. In it, journalists Terrence McCoy and Marina Dias described the work done by by a Catholic priest, Ricardo Rezende Figueira, to raise awareness of labor abuses committed by Volkswagen Brazil beginning almost 50 years ago. Now, a legal judgment in the case has been reached - and it's put Volkswagen's Brazilian subsidiary on the hook for the equivalent of $30 million.
As McCoy and Dias explained in their original article, a subsidiary of Volkwagen Brazil was part of an effort to clear the rainforest for cattle ranching. They describe the conditions under which employees hired to take part in these efforts as "geographically isolated, ensnared by debt, sickened by malaria and forced to toil under threat of violence." McCoy and Dias also describe the two contractors hired to oversee the ranching efforts as "among the Amazon frontier's most notorious and brutal figures."
Collection
[
|
...
]