Wal-Mart Refuses to Do Business With Sugar Producer on Slavery Blacklist
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the world's largest retailer, is refusing to buy sugar from Brazilian
sugar supplier Cosan SA Industria & Comercio. The company was just added to a slavery "blacklist" by the Brazilian government. The list reveals companies whose workers are kept in slave-like working conditions. Cosan, the world's largest sugar cane producer, denies the charges and says that it has already gotten an injunction taking its name off the list. Cosan said the whole thing was a "mistake" and that the problems came from a third party cane cutter.
"Cosan had problems with a contractor three years ago and solved them immediately," [Agriculture Minister] Stephanes said. "It has good practices."
The slavery blacklist is managed by the Labor Ministry. Stephanes suggested Cosan and Labor Ministry officials meet to discuss its removal from the blacklist.
The Labor Ministry said 42 Cosan workers were found and "liberated" from conditions analogous to slavery. Another 163 employers are also on the ministry blacklist, which was created in 2004 and is updated every six months.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA's fuel distribution unit, which buys ethanol from Cosan, may consider "restrictions" on the company, a BR Distribuidora spokesman, who couldn't be named because of company policy, said yesterday. Petrobras is Brazil's state-controlled oil producer.
The sugarcane industry in Latin America has been under investigation for years by human rights watch groups, especially for its use of child labor. There has been a movement to end the use of human labor to cut sugarcane with machetes, and to use machines instead. That then raises the issue of what the cane cutters will do for a living. In any event, it's a good thing that Wal-Mart is refusing to do business with any company that lands on one of these blacklists.
Walmart issued a statement saying that it "vehemently repudiates any practice that does not respect human rights."
