LABOUR-BRAZIL: Hazards of Working

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 6 1999 (IPS) - A spate of accidents in ceramic factories – that left more than 10 children without a hand, arm or leg – has spurred the Labor Office into banning 550 machines from the workplace in Abaestetuba, in the north of the country.

The children have long been employed illegally to load clay into the machines, known as “marombas”, used to make bricks and shingles.

The factories cannot be fined or sanctioned, because it is an informal activity, without the legal constitution as businesses, said Luis Mota Pereira, spokesman for the Ministry of Labor.

For that reason, the accidents that mutilated the children do not appear in official statistics that place Brazil in 14th place among the countries with the highest risks in the workplace, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Brazil’s position has actually improved. In 1993 Brazil was number ten in the rankings, surpassed by developing countries in Asia and Africa along with Turkey and two Central American nations, Guatemala and Costa Rica.

But Brazil is also one of the champions in industrial accidents, including explosions, fires, and leaks of deadly toxic substances.

In the registries of the United Nations Program for the Environment, Brazil suffered three of the most violent industrial accidents: the explosion of a deposit of petroleum liquid gas in 1972, the derailment of a train loaded with fuel, and the explosion of a oil pipeline in 1984, with a total of 74 dead.

That hard reality. as well as the advances made in prevention, contributed to the selection of Brazil as the site of the XV World Congress for Work Safety and Health, to be held April 12-16 in Sao Paulo.

This will be the first time that the conference, held every three years under the sponsorship of the ILO and the International Association for Social Security, will be featured in a Latin American country.

This is an acknowledgment of the effort the country has made, especially in Sao Paulo, said Humberto Parra, president of the Foundation for Work Safety and Medicine (FUNDACENTRO), who is organizing the conference together with the Brazilian Ministry of Labor.

The number of work accidents in Brazil decreased from 1.9 million in 1975 to 1.4 million in 1980, and to 369,000 in 1997. Deaths dropped 45 percent since 1980, according to official data, and decreased to 2,600 in 1997.

These results were achieved thanks to norms established by the government beginning in 1978 and to prevention campaigns both by the Ministry of Labor as well as business associations and unions, Parra said..

In 1997, the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) began a campaign in its sector, where the majority of the accidents are concentrated. It also conducted a study that estimated in 5.8 billion dollars the losses in medical treatment of the victims, fines, indemnities and hours not worked.

It is a high cost that cuts into profits, productivity and the competitiveness of businesses, leaving them more vulnerable in a market open to international competition.

But there are doubts about the veracity of the statistics that indicate great advances in prevention. Unions accuse businesses of hiding many cases in order to avoid fines and other sanctions.

The reduction in the number of accidents is greater than the number of deaths, said Sylvia Yano, manager for Health and Safety of the Social Service for Industry, an organization linked to the CNI. The total number of accidents dropped 73 percent since 1980, compared to 45 percent among fatal victims.

There were also great variations that cannot be explained in the number of accidents in some sectors, such as agriculture and transportation.

In addition to the growth of the informal labor market, which already represents more than half of the employed labor force, statistics are distorted because workers are often afraid to lose their jobs because of accidents or professional illnesses.

Companies are not interested in reporting them, so they can avoid bureaucracy and because of the legal requirement against firing a worker who has had an accident which prevented them for working for more than 15 days – when the costs of this absence are covered by the public Social Security system.

In the meantime, widows and orphans, miners with their lungs destroyed, farmers contaminated by toxic substances and children with amputated limbs or blinded by the sharp end of the sisal, a plant that produces a rustic fiber, remain proof of the persistence of the problem.