Brazil charges Volkswagen unit with treating farm workers like slaves decades ago

Brazilian labor prosecutors charged Volkswagen's local unit with subjecting farm workers to conditions akin to slavery decades ago and are seeking 165 million reais ($27.5 million) in damages, they said on Thursday.

Volkswagen do Brasil said in a statement it had not been formally notified of the charges yet.

Volkswagen committed human rights violations on the farm it owned from 1974 to 1986 in northern Brazil, the prosecutors alleged. A labor judge will review the charges and decide whether the case against VW will move forward.

The Brazilian federal labor prosecutors started to investigate after reports by Ricardo Rezende, a priest and a professor at the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro, in 2019 from documents and testimonials by the farm workers.

The labor prosecutors found "serious violations of human rights" happened on the farm, with workers subjected to "slavery-like" conditions through exhausting working hours, degrading working conditions and debt bondage, prosecutor Rafael Rodrigues said in a statement.

The charges, which include the request for collective moral damages, follow failed talks with Volkswagen do Brasil aimed at a settlement, the prosecutors said. They said the firm quit the negotiations in March 2023 and "showed no interest" in signing an agreement with them.