About half of Brazil’s coffee harvesters work without a contract

Labourers in the world’s largest coffee nation are accustomed to dangerous transport, wretched accommodations, and long working days for little pay. According to workers’ organisations, however, the most common problem for coffee pickers in Brazil is that nearly half of them work without a contract, and thereby forfeit basic social security benefits.

Death threats, lawsuits and bribery attempts are just a few of the ordeals that Jorge Ferreira dos Santos Filho has experienced in connection with his attempts to secure the rights of coffee workers in Brazil’s largest coffee-producing region, the state of Minas Gerais.

Santos once worked on the coffee plantations himself. Today he is a coordinator for the social movement Articulação dos Empregados Rurais de Minas Gerais, known as Adere, and his days are spent driving around coffee plantations, speaking with workers, and informing authorities when he discovers breaches of law.

“The biggest problem is that so many coffee workers have no contract. Because of this, they miss out on the social benefits they are entitled to,” he says.

According to Brazilian law, work on coffee plantations must be registered in each employee’s Carteira de Trabalho, an official work document that guarantees their rights to social benefits like sick pay, vacation pay, pension, and unemployment compensation. This registration is far from universal, however.  

Forfeiting social benefits

Half of Brazil’s coffee is produced in the state of Minas Gerais, where about half of agricultural workers do not have a contract, according to Santos. He believes that close to the same percentage of coffee workers work without a contract.

Vilson Luiz da Silva, head of Minas Gerais’s largest agricultural workers’ union, FETAEMG, agrees that a large percentage of the state’s coffee workers work without a contract.

Coffee workers in Brazil work under conditions that contravene both Brazilian law and international conventions. Photo: Maurilo Clareto Costa.

“During the harvest, about 40-50 percent of labourers work informally, without being registered,” says Silva. He reports that plantation owners frequently offer workers a higher wage to work without a contract.

“The workers don’t realise how vulnerable they are when they don’t have a contract,” Silva says.

But even the workers who have official contracts can miss out on social benefits to which they are entitled, according to Roni Barbosa, director of the research institution Instituto Observatório Social, which is affiliated with Brazil’s largest umbrella organisation for trade unions, the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT).

“Forty percent of those with official contracts still experience violations of their rights. Typically they can neither read nor write, and so they lose out on things like vacation pay and overtime pay. They simply sign the documents without knowing what they are agreeing to,” says Barbosa.

He goes on to explain that the employer is supposed to pay a percentage of employees’ wages into an unemployment insurance programme, so the employees can receive benefits if they lose their jobs. The employers often don’t, however.

Meet coffee worker Elisabete Vitor da Costa, who explains how during the 2014 coffee harvest she was forced to sign blank documents instead of an official contract.

Paid by the sack

Coffee plantations usually employ a limited number of year-round workers, who are in charge of planting new coffee bushes, maintaining buildings, spraying pesticides and fertiliser, etc. When the harvest begins around June, the plantation owner hires a larger number of seasonal workers, who work on the plantation for the approximately three months that the harvest lasts.

According to Jorge Ferreira dos Santos Filho from Adere, migrant workers make up just under 30 percent of coffee pickers. Most come from poorer states north of Minas Gerais, where jobs are scarce, and drought makes agriculture difficult. The majority of seasonal workers, however, come from the local area.

The year-round employees tend to receive a set salary, while the harvest workers are paid for each 60-litre coffee sack they fill. The price for filling a coffee sack is set by the individual plantation owner and usually depends on the quality of the harvest that year. The price per coffee sack varies therefore from year to year and from plantation to plantation. Indeed, it can even vary from coffee bush to coffee bush on certain plantations, because some bushes are more productive than others, depending on when they were planted.  

Illegally low wages

João Newton Reis Teixeira owns a plantation with 380 hectares of coffee bushes. He says he pays anything from 12 to 20 reais (about $3-5) to fill a 60-litre sack, depending on whether the bushes in that area of the plantation are productive or not. His coffee plantation is certified by 4C, UTZ and the Rainforest Alliance, whose objectives are to guarantee that coffee is produced in a sustainable way. The prices he quotes here are on the high end of the spectrum of prices that were communicated to Danwatch by workers during the 2015 harvest.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, according to Jorge Ferreira dos Santos Filho, a large proportion of coffee workers are paid under the monthly minimum wage of 788 reais (about $190).

“Forty percent of agricultural workers in Minas Gerais are paid less than the minimum wage,” says Santos, who believes this also applies to coffee workers in particular.

According to Santos, women are especially vulnerable to low pay. “During the harvest, wages are determined by how much coffee you pick. Most of the women who take part in the coffee harvest are between 35 and 40 years old, and they are usually less productive than the men,” he says.

The rate for filling a 60-litre coffee sack can vary a great deal, Santos says, but he believes that 8 reais (about $2) is a typical price. Many of the coffee workers we meet report that they are earning between 8 and 15 reais (between $2-4) per sack for the 2015 harvest.

Santos also reports that, in his experience, coffee plantation owners often think up various ruses that permit them to pay their employees less than they have earned. On his computer screen, he displays a picture of a rectangular yellow plastic box with holes in the sides for handles.

“If you fill the yellow box up to the holes, it’s 60 litres. But the plantation owner blocks the holes, so they have to fill the box up to the rim. That makes 20 litres extra, so it’s suddenly a third more,” says Santos.

Long days with few to rest

According to union leader Vilson Luiz da Silva from FETAEMG, seasonal workers often work very long days during the coffee harvest because they are paid for each sack they fill.

“The workers’ pay is based on how much they produce. So they often work 10 or more hours per day,” he says.

According to Jorge Ferreira dos Santos Filho from Adere, workers from the local area typically leave their homes at 5:30 in the morning and return home from work at about 6:00 at night.

“Sometimes they work 14-hour days, which is much more than the law allows,” says Santos.

According to Brazilian law, agricultural workers may not work more than 44 hours per week, and never more than 10 hours per day.  

Migrant workers generally have poorer working conditions than seasonal workers from the local area, and they often work long hours seven days a week.

Coffee workers on their way home after a long day of work at a plantation in Minas Gerais. Photo: Maurilo Clareto Costa.

Dangerous transport leads to accidents at work

Coffee workers are usually transported to the plantation as a group, often in old, poorly maintained busses, in tractors pulling wagons, or in open truck beds.  

“There are many serious accidents,” says Santos, who reports that the ride to the plantation can be deadly. According to the latest numbers available to Adere of accidents occurring during transport to coffee plantations, four different accidents caused 22 deaths in Minas Gerais state in the year 2011. 

One of the coffee workers Danwatch met during the 2015 harvest was in a serious bus accident in 2014 while being transported to a coffee plantation. The union staff at FETAEMG also raise the issue of transportation accidents as a serious problem.  

Labourers and cows drink the same water

Usually, seasonal workers from the local area don’t live on the coffee plantation, but instead travel each morning from their own homes. Year-round and migrant workers, on the other hand, tend to stay on the plantations, where living conditions can be wretched.

“Walls and roofs are often ready to fall in. In many places, there is no access to clean drinking water”, says Jorge Ferreira dos Santos Filho, explaining that in some places, workers must drink from the same small streams used by cows.

“It’s illegal. The plantation owner must provide treated water”, he says.

The houses used by migrant workers are often only sparsely furnished, and sometimes workers sleep on thin mattresses on the floor or in improvised bunk beds.  

“Sometimes the owner just takes some wood and nails it to the wall, so the bunks are liable to collapse”, says Santos.

According to him, conditions for the coffee workers have not improved significantly over the last five years.

“It is still common to find workers sleeping on the floor,” says Santos.

Danwatch has asked the umbrella organisation for plantation owners in Minas Gerais, the Federação da Agricultura e Pecuária do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAEMG), for a response to the criticisms raised with respect to the conditions experienced by coffee workers. Danwatch has also asked how the organisation plans to ensure that its members offer their employees contracts, protective equipment, legal wages, legal working hours, as well as the suitable housing prescribed by labour regulations. FAEMG declined to answer Danwatch’s questions.

Better conditions on certified plantations

According to the union leader at FETAEMG, Vilson Luiz da Silva, workers are often reluctant to complain about the poor working conditions on plantations.  

“Today, many workers are being replaced by machines. So they don’t dare to complain about conditions to the plantation owner. Some owners threaten their employees, saying, ‘Accept the conditions, or you’ll be replaced by a machine’”, says Silva.

Silva believes that conditions on certified plantations are significantly better than those on non-certified coffee plantations. Some of the most common coffee certification schemes in Brazil are 4C, UTZ, the Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade. Only a very small percentage of coffee production in Brazil is certified organic.

“The certified plantations know that if they don’t observe the rules and ensure good working conditions, they will lose their next order. So certification does make a big difference,” says Silva.

According to him, it can be lucrative in the long run for plantation owners to become certified. But it is a cumbersome process that is at odds with both the widespread desire for fast money and the tendency for short-sighted solutions that, in Silva’s opinion, are widespread in Brazil.

The struggle for rights requires sacrifice

Although Jorge Ferreira dos Santos Filho from Adere thinks improvements are still a long way off, he continues undaunted in his struggle to secure the rights of the coffee workers of Minas Gerais.  The work is dangerous. In addition to threats of violence, he is often sued by plantation owners angered by his reports of violations of coffee workers’ rights.

Santos recalls a time when he went to the police station to report a plantation he had visited where conditions did not meet legal standards. According to Santos, the police officer was a friend of the plantation owner, and threatened him so that he would not file a report. Later, the plantation owner filed a suit against Santos for trespassing on his property. The case dragged on for years until he was finally acquitted, but, according to Santos, it is only one of many examples of legal proceedings and threats designed to prevent him from doing his work.