Abstract:
The recent cases of rescued workers subject to slavery-like conditions show the persistence of this phenomenon in Brazilian society. This article scrutinizes the old and new mechanisms that perpetuate this phenomenon, paying particular attention to the role of the Brazilian political economy and new forms of work man-agement, namely outsourcing. Through a case study, that of work-ers from Bahia rescued from the Bento Gonçalves wineries in Rio Grande do Sul, this article shows how the confluence of these factors makes work subjected to slavery-like conditions a crime that must be combated beyond the coercive apparatus of the State. Only changes in labor market regulation, access to land, and, more generally, in the country’s political economy can eradicate this social scourge.
