Marcos had left his village a little over two years ago, thrown out of his natural habitat –like so many other indigenous people– by the advance of the agricultural frontier on the rain forest. He and his wife came to Sidrolândia with the hope that there they would find means to feed their children, something they could no longer do where they came from.

But what could an indigenous man do in the city, where his vast and sophisticated knowledge is looked down upon or rendered useless? When he was called to work at the poultry processing plant, he had been on the job waiting list for less than a month. He celebrated his good fortune and thanked God for having spared him the misery of hunger this time. The poultry processing plant is a large company, a transnational corporation with a union and a collective bargaining agreement —he said to himself. It was the first time in his life that he was faced with the prospect of earning a steady salary for what he hoped would be a long time.

That is why on March 28, Marcos headed off to work in good spirits. He had been going down that road for over two years now, in a routine only altered when he changed shifts. This time, his shift began at five in the morning. Fifteen minutes before that hour, Marcos walked through the plant gates and blended in with the hundreds of workers that came to work every day. That would be his last time.

A few minutes after 9 a.m., Marcos was at his waste verification task in the huge chiller belt that carries the slaughtered chickens to the chilling area. The workers assigned to these tasks have only one hour to clean the entire plant -the shift's lunch hour-, so everything is done at great speed. If they don’t clean up properly, Federal Hygiene Inspectors will not authorize the beginning of a new slaughter cycle. Working against the clock, under pressure, with no safety gear whatsoever, and without proper protection, Marcos slipped at the edge of the chiller and fell in.

According to the testimony of Clodoaldo Fernandes Alves, vice president of the Union of Food Industry Workers of Sidrolândia (Sindaves), “His fellow workers were able to stop the machine but couldn’t prevent Marcos from being trapped by it. When the mechanics arrived they said the tank had to be cut from below, in order to pull Marcos out, but the company’s quality control staff decided to invert the belt’s rotation direction. It was a terrible mistake, because Marcos was sucked in by the spiral and cut in half.”

Sergio Irineu Bolzan, president of Sindaves and director of the Mato Grosso do Sul State Federation of Food Industry Workers, told Sirel that “It is a recurring tragedy. Marcos had no safety gear whatsoever, despite our repeated requests that workers be provided with such gear. If he’d at least been wearing a safety belt, he would’ve been left hanging in the air without suffering any injuries.”

Bolzan informed Sirel that a union delegation was on its way to Campo Grande, the State capital, where they were going to file a complaint with the Public Prosecution Office to request that the Federal Attorney General open an inquiry and conduct the relevant expert investigations. “The entire company has serious safety problems, it’s not just in the processing plant,” Bolzan explained. In the farm, the roof of the chicken-breeding house is cracked, it has holes through which water filters in, and it has an air extractor on top of it that weights 2 tons. We’ve been asking the company for over a month to do something about this, because the roof is going to cave in at any moment and there are people working there.”

Cargill’s poultry sector is a gigantic machine that produces injured workers, not just because of its dreadful occupational safety conditions, but also because of the intense work pace it imposes on the production line. In the case of the Sidrolândia plant, whose entire production is exported to Europe and the United States, operators must bone six chicken legs per minute and slaughter 150 thousand chickens a day. With 2,313 workers on its payroll, Cargill employs more than 10 percent of the city’s inhabitants, and almost 25 percent of its economically active population. Sindaves has already brought a lawsuit against the company, demanding that Marcos Antonio’s family be paid proper damages.

In view of the repeated abuses committed by the transnational corporation Cargill, Siderlei de Oliveira, president of the National Confederation of Food Industry Workers (Contac) and coordinator of the National Health-at-Work Institute (INST) of the United Workers Federation (CUT), said to Sirel that “Unfortunately this incident tragically confirms what we have been warning about for a long time, which is that Cargill’s total disregard for occupational safety regulations and the frantic work pace it subjects its workers to have turned it into a human meat grinder. We know that Cargill in Sidrolândia is keeping quiet now, which is not surprising, as this company always acts in the same manner, with the same irresponsibility. It has never responded to the numerous requests made by us with respect to safety issues. This reveals the type of companies that are operating in Brazil’s poultry industry. I can say that one of the most debated issues in the recent 25^th Congress of the IUF was Cargill’s activities, and the conclusion we arrived at is that it is one of worst and most irresponsible companies in the world.”

De Oliveira also pointed out that “We’ve already held strikes, filed complaints, and brought suits; now we need the public authorities to get behind us on this. We are also working in Europe with consumers, to make them aware of what bringing chicken to their tables means for Brazilian workers, so that they know that it can sometimes even costs us our lives.”

For her part, CONTAC Health secretary Geni dalla Rosa said during the IUF Women’s Conference, which was held right before the Congress, that “Thousands of women suffer daily under appalling working conditions. They bear the pain in their bodies, bodies that cannot endure the work pace in the poultry plants of Brazil. Our country is world champion of chicken exports, and to win that title it has also turned into the world champion of victims of Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI).”

Lastly, Siderlei de Oliveira stressed that "We need to get the Ministries of Health and Labor involved in a joint effort, because this transnational corporation has multiplied its profits on the basis of a frantic work pace that is injuring and mutilating workers throughout the country, grinding human meat. Sadly, this death brings the crowning touch to the carnival of horrors that Cargill’s packing plants have turned into.” 

Carlos Amorín* © Rel-UITA March 30, 2007