Inspection carried out this week by the Ministry of Labor and Employment in São Paulo rescued five workers who provided services for the Lollapalooza music festival, which runs from today (24th) to Sunday (26th) at the Interlagos Circuit, in São Paulo. The festival is considered one of the largest in the world, attracting around 100,000 people a day. In last year’s edition, the event moved BRL 421.8 million and, this year, led to an 80% occupancy rate in the city’s hotel network. According to Lollapalooza, more than 9,000 people work directly at the site, and more than 170 service providers were hired to carry out this edition of the event. According to the ministry, the five rescued workers provided drinks logistics services for the festival and were informal, sleeping on the floor or on pallets (ladders} of drinks, without electricity, mattress and without receiving personal protective equipment (PPE). ). They were hired as porters by the company Yellow Stripe, a third-party company hired by Time For Fun, which organizes Lollapalooza in Brazil, and would receive R$ 130 per day of work, but ended up being victims of exhausting journeys, which reached 12 hours a day. The rescued workers were forced to sleep on site, between the beverage storage points, to monitor the cargo. The company did not even provide toilet paper or soap for contractors. According to inspection, three of them had mattresses, which they brought from home, and the others slept on cardboard and wood. After the inspection action to combat slave labor, the food service company Animalchef, which produces vegan snacks and would provide snacks backstage at the event, decided to cancel its participation in the festival in protest. In a note published on its social networks, the company reported that it was surprised by the news about slave labor at Lollapalooza and that it decided to break the contract “as a matter of principles and consistency”. “Social justice is one of the core values of this transition we are making,” the company wrote. In an interview today with TV Brasil, labor inspector Maurício Krepsky, head of the Inspection Division for the Eradication of Slave Labour, said that the situation found at the site was “extremely serious”. “There was even a certain restriction on coming and going. They were there with the obligation to sleep in the place to be able to guard, protect the material that was being unloaded.” According to Krepsky, this set of labor irregularities was considered “a serious and degrading work condition”. The company and those responsible have been notified, Krepsky said. “The company was notified to pay all salary and severance pay, with all due rights, and the labor audit will issue the rescued worker’s unemployment insurance form. In addition, the workers were referred for reception and care by the social assistance of the municipalities of residence.” During the interview, Krepsky also said that the profile of workers rescued in operations against slave labor usually reflects the profile of people in situations of greater social vulnerability in the country. “About 90% are men, more than 80% are black, and most of them have, at most, incomplete fifth grade. About 10% are illiterate. Regarding the age group, they are between 20 and 39 years old. They are men, black, with low education and young,” he told TV Brasil. The report by Agência Brasil tried to contact the outsourced company Yellow Stripe, which manages the event’s bar service, but did not receive a response until the publication of this report. Yellow Stripe and made sure that all five workers’ rights were guaranteed. “T4F considers this an isolated fact, vehemently repudiates it and will continue with a strong stance in the face of any non-compliance with rules by outsourced companies”, says the company, in a note. Complaints about work analogous to the condition of slavery can be made through the website https://ipe.sit.trabalho.gov.br/.
Agência Brasil
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