7 March, 2013Ford Brazil has been fined R$400 million (US$200 million) for illegal outsourcing at its Tatuí plant, in the interior of Sao Paulo state, where it has a development centre and a test track.
The Labour Prosecutor’s office in Brazil said that Ford recruited workers employed at its Tatuí plant through AVAPE, an association to promote the interests of disabled people, in order to gain tax benefits. However, none of the 280 employees supplied by AVAPE for more than a decade was disabled.
The judge, Marcurs Menezes Barberino, said Ford would be fined an additional R$ 500,000 (US$250,000) per day if it did not begin direct recruitment for the jobs in question within 60 days. As AVAPE does not have the resources to pay a share of the fine, Ford will have to pay the entire fine of R$400 million (R$200 million to the National and State Funds for Rights and R$200 million to the town of Tatuí for investment in training programmes for disabled people).
The judge stressed that outsourcing is legitimate for secondary activities such as cleaning and security. However, the workers recruited by Ford through AVAPE were employed on core jobs.