Labor Inspection Strategies in Brazil Junia Maria Barreto Director of Department of Occupational Health and Safety Ministry of Labor and Employment

Labor Inspection in Brazil  3162 inspectors in a federal system – 1/3 specialists in occupational health or safety engineering  27 regional units subregional units  Secretary of Labor Inspection in the Ministry of Labour and Employment programmes include:  Worker Protection Network  Slave Work  Child Labor  Health and Safety at Work – inspection and regulation actions  Labor inspectors:  free access to all workplaces  power to impose interdictions or debarments and to impose fines  can have access to all documents related to the compliance of the labor law  analyses work-related accidents  Close relations to employers’ and workers’ representatives and other public institutions

A Paradigm Shift   Structural changes, new inspectors, new career law  Goals of productivity with financial impacts  Development of new strategies and inspection methods with focus on economical sectors, clusters and productive chains  Annual planning focused in problems diagnosed in consultation with workers’ representatives  2008: new changes in the career brings the challenge of constructing a new and better management system of the Labor Inspection

Results

Brazilian Experience with the Steel Industry  Productive chain of the steel industry: slave labor (1996)  Carajá’s region: 15 companies that receive iron ore from Vale do Rio Doce Company  4 million tons of pig iron per year, for exportation  9 million m 3 of coal per year  vegetal coal small producers  direct and indirect jobs  1999: signature of a term of adjustment to promote better working conditions in coal production – results not sustainable  2004: commitment of the industrial association of Carajás with the end of slave labor with the creation of a non-governmental organization (“Instituto Carvão Cidadão”)  2005: National Agreement for the Eradication of Slave Labour in Brazil  voluntary effort aiming at dignifying and modernizing labour relations in the productive chain from all the sectors that have kept workers in conditions analogous to slavery  promoted by ILO and non-governmental organizations, ratified by the federal government  signature of more than 100 companies

Brazilian Experience with the Steel Industry  2006: 417 coal producers audited in three areas  Results:  85% legalized workers  better working and safety conditions  actions for reintegration of workers that are still working under degrading or unworthy conditions to overcome their situation of social exclusion  Problems:  local differences / variations  signs of slave labor (from 5 to 60% of the producers)  complex social relations