The Brazilian subsidiary of the German car giant Volkswagen will appeal a sentence that condemned him on Friday for having kept workers in conditions close to slavery in the seventies and eighties, announced in a statement consulted on Saturday by AFP.
A court for the Industrial Court of Para (Northern Brazil) considered Friday that hundreds of workers from a farm belonging to Volkswagen do Brazil had been debts by debts and observed by armed guards while working. The Brazilian company must pay 165 million reais (26 million euros) as compensation, this court ruled, the largest fine of this type ever imposed in the history of Brazil.
Volkswagen do Brazil “will continue to defend himself, to affirm justice and legal certainty, before the higher courts,” said the company. “With a 72 -year history, the company constantly defends the principles of human dignity and strictly complies with all applicable laws and regulations,” he added. Volkswagen do Brazil must also recognize its responsibility and present a formal apology, the court decided.
“Workers’ testimonies”
The Brazilian subsidiary of Volkswagen bought, in the mid -1970s, land to create a bovine exploitation, encouraged by the government that hoped to develop regions inside and around the Amazon forest.
“The evidence has shown that the company has not only invested (in the farm), but has also actively participated in its strategic management, directly benefiting from the illegal exploitation of the workforce,” said Labor Judge Otavio Bruno Da Silva Ferreira to justify the condition, in a judicial document whose extracts were summoned in a press release published by the office of prosecutors.
“The official reports, the testimonies of workers and documents of public organizations show that the adopted production model included debt practices, violence and submission to degrading conditions, of the order of modern slavery,” added the magistrate.
Employee at the time to clear the tropical forest for the establishment of this farm, José Pereira had declared the German Ard of the public channel in 2022 that the workers were indebted with the entrepreneurs who recruited them and that the abuses were widespread. “If someone tried to escape, the guards persecuted and shot him,” he said. “They hit those who had escaped. On the street, in the cabins, everyone saw this,” according to him.
Volkswagen began to reduce his activities on this farm in 1986.
Source: BFM TV
