In Brazil, a labor court said it had a subsidiary of the vehicle manufacturer Daimler trucks was sentenced to a compensation payment of the equivalent of around 6.7 million euros for discrimination and bullying of employees at its factory in the state of São Paulo. The court said workers at the factory in the southern Brazilian city of Campinas who were injured in an industrial accident were subjected to “degrading and degrading situations,” including racial discrimination, when they returned to work.
According to court documents, between 2004 and 2019, several employees at Daimler Trucks’ largest parts distribution and logistics center outside Germany were discriminated against after suffering illnesses or injuries on the job. After recovery, they were “isolated, including physically” when they returned to work. They were classified as a “deviant group” and were “withheld opportunities for advancement and salary increases,” it said.
The court rejected statements from the commercial vehicle manufacturer that these were isolated cases. Accepting this statement from the company would represent a “serious” setback for workers’ rights, it said.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of the text stated that the affected subsidiary belonged to Mercedes-Benz. In fact, the company “Mercedes-Benz do Brasil” belongs to Daimler Truck AG. We have corrected the passages.