Vivo's Mother Telefnica Brasil Suffers Blow to Reputation; Found Guilty of Slave Labor

[Judi Lynn]

The company and its contractors will be fined R$200,000 (US$53,167), but also risk being added to a “dirty list” of companies found guilty of slave labor by labor courts.

By Newsfeed -August 1, 2019

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Thomson Reuters Foundation said in its latest report that the country’s leading mobile company, Spain-owned Telefônica Brasil (Vivo), and three firms in its supply chain have been found guilty of engaging in slave labor.

A panel of labor judges in the Espirito Santo state ruled that Telefônica, publicly traded as Vivo in Brazil, was culpable after workers toiled in slavery-like conditions during the building of a cellphone tower in 2014.

The decision supports the idea that companies be held responsible for labor abuses within their supply chain, even when not directly involved in perpetrating them, prosecutors and campaigners said.

The company and its contractors will be fined R$200,000 (US$53,167), but also risk being added to a “dirty list” of companies found guilty of slave labor by labor courts. The list is set to be published later this year, but prosecutors would not confirm whether Vivo would be added, writes Reuters.
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Eleven laborers were lured for the job from Maranhão, one of Brazil’s poorest states, working long hours for a month without adequate rest or bathroom or sleeping facilities, while receiving no pay. The employer held their working papers even after the job was done, leaving the workers “in a miserable state, abandoned on the place they were working on, unable to return to their homes,” wrote lead prosecutor Antonio Carlos Soares.

More:
https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/brazil/vivo-mother-telefonica-brasil-suffers-blow-to-reputation-found-guilty-of-slave-labor/