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Cane cutters working in six factories went on strike around 13 June to support their demands for an increase in the basic wage for the category, improved working conditions, changes to the system of payments, and to end outsourcing practices by employers. Workers returned to work on 18 June, according to sources with Feraesp, the São Paulo federation of rural workers.
Feraesp demanded a basic wage for the category of 1,600 reais, compared to the current 450 reais (USD 1.00=BRL 1.91), a 30-hour week (now of about 44 hours), end to the payment by the tonne of cut cane and its replacement by the linear metre, improved medical and health care, periods of rests during the work day, provision of lunch, and increased safety in transportation and in the work environment.
At the moment of writing there was no information on the resolution of the strike, but Feraesp sources said it had been favourable to workers. In closely related news, an investigation by the Labour Ministry on the circumstances of the death of Mr Juraci Barbosa, a 39-year old cane cutter who died on 29 June 2006, found that he had worked 70 uninterrupted days between 15 April and 26 June, according to the datacollected from his work card. Moreover, he was reported as cutting a volume of cane well above the daily average of ten tonnes in the days preceding his death.
Mr Barbosa died after getting sick in his house and being taken to the hospital of Jaborandi (in the state of São Paulo). The death certificate said that his death was due to “unknown causes.” During a whole month Mr Barbosa cut on average ten tonnes of cane per day, but the actual volume varied in some days. “Calls the attention the fact that on 21 April, in just one day, he cut 24.6 tonnes of cane. And on 28 June, the day before his death, 17.4 tonnes,” said Dr João Amancio Batista who evaluated the documents presented by Usina São José, his employer. Mr Barbosa’s is one of the 19 deaths since 2004 which are suspected to have been provoked by exhaustion in the cane fields of São Paulo state.
According to Mário Antonio Gomes, a solicitor with the Labour Ministry, an enquiry has been launched into the working conditions in companies where deaths of workers have occurred. The enquiry will propose specific measures in terms of commitments and actions (by employers) with the objective of making factories and companies to fulfil the labour norms.
The solicitor said that university researchers are also investigating the work routine of agricultural workers. “We have indications that deaths had been caused by exhaustion but, scientifically, we do not have anything conclusive; this is why the concern of the researchers is important,” he said. (Informativo Cerest/SP 47 - 28 May 2007.)
Meanwhile, Senator Paulo Paim from the Partido dos Trabalhadores (RS) presented a project of a bill which would limit to 40 hours the working week of sugar cane cutters, proposing also that employers have to provide life insurance for their workers, and pay an additional 20 percent in wages to compensate for the heavy activity. The senator argued that cane cutting is so an unhealthy activity that is directly related to the deaths of 1,383 cane cutters in the past five years. It is estimated that about 1 million of workers cut the sugar cane for alcohol and sugarproduction in the country.
“To cut ten tonnes of sugar cane and to earn 24 reais per day a cane cutter has to cover nine kilometres by foot, perform about 73,000 strikes with a machete, and flex his legs some 36,000 times. Tired, many of them face very difficult times in the cane fields, losing up to eight litres of water per day,” said Paim. He said that producing ethanol (from cane) opens great possibilities for the country, but stressed that it is necessary to protect the workers in the cane fields, providing them with “the most basic human and social rights”. The project also proposes that agricultural cane workers would have access to a special retirement pension with the national insurance scheme after 25 years of intermittent or continuous service.
A project for a similar bill is with the Brazilian deputy chamber, a bill that describes cane cutting as an arduous activity, which needs to be limited to a six-hour day work, 36 hours per week. Workers should have 10-minute rests every 90 minutes of work, and payment by productivity ought to be banned. The bill also proposes fines of up to 10 times the basic salary for the category for those employers who infringe it once approved.