JBS joined the National Pact for the Eradication of Slave Labor (InPacto), a corporate initiative to strengthen actions against slave labor in Brazil. By joining the institute, the company said it reaffirmed “its commitment to sustainability and the development of a clean and responsible supply chain.” Despite this, subsequent reports and surveys by different organizations have revealed ongoing problems in this area.
According to the Regional Labor Court of Mato Grosso state (TRT/MT), JBS was ordered by the Labor Court to pay R$2.3 million (around US$ 1 million at the time the fines were issued) due to labor violations at its meatpacking plant in Juruena, in the state of Mato Grosso. These included supplying employees with meat containing maggots. The lawsuits, filed by the Labor Prosecutor’s Office (Ministério Público do Trabalho – MPT), cited issues such as exhausting working hours, lack of protective equipment, and the absence of mandatory occupational health programs. As reported by the MPT/MT, in 2016 the company signed an agreement to pay R$3 million (around US$ 900,000 at that time) in compensation for collective moral damages to settle this and other lawsuits related to working conditions at its facilities in Mato Grosso.
Repórter Brasil revealed that a farm supplying JBS kept a worker in conditions analogous to slavery for ten years. According to a Federal Government inspection, the worker had no access to drinking water or any food on the property, located in Dourados (state of Mato Grosso do Sul). According to the report, the farmer carried a gun and would fire shots into the air as he moved around the area.
JBS employees faced recurring health problems due to the poor working conditions to which they were subjected, according to a study by Repórter Brasil. According to the study, based on data from the Brazilian federal government, 14% of the 1,850 employees at the company’s unit in Barretos (state of São Paulo) were permanently off work due to accidents and occupational illnesses. In the first half of 2011 alone, there were 496 requests for leave due to mental disorders and musculoskeletal problems.
According to an article in Valor, JBS was notified by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office for buying cattle from farms with irregularities, including areas located within the Marãiwatsédé Indigenous Land in Mato Grosso state, farms that had been embargoed by Ibama and a property that was listed on the “dirty list” of labor analogous to slavery. At the time, according to the MPF, the company was given a deadline to respond since the purchases violated a previous agreement with the company, in which JBS had undertaken not to buy animals from areas associated with this type of irregularities.
JBS - Friboi has undertaken to stop purchasing meat from areas embargoed by environmental enforcement agencies, Indigenous lands, and farms where labor analogous to slavery has been identified, across the entire country of Brazil. These obligations were assumed in a nationwide agreement signed with the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (Ministério Público Federal – MPF), following the signing of similar terms in the states of Pará and Mato Grosso. However, the result of subsequent audits by the MPF indicate that JBS did not reach levels considered satisfactory in the 3rd, 4th and 5th cycles carried out to assess compliance with the terms of the agreement.
JBS joined the Livestock Pact as part of the São Paulo-Amazon Sustainable Connections initiative promoted by the Ethos Institute. The aim of the initiative was to ensure that their suppliers were not on the “dirty list” of labor analogous to slavery or operating in areas embargoed by Ibama. But the following year, the report "Slaughtering the Amazon", by Greenpeace International, revealed that JBS had companies involved in modern slavery and deforestation among its suppliers.
Following the repercussion of a report by Greenpeace International revealing JBS’s links to illegal deforestation and modern slavery, the company committed to eliminating deforestation from its cattle purchases in the Amazon. JBS signed the G4 Cattle Agreement (also known as the Public Livestock Commitment - CPP) pledging to exclude from its list of suppliers any ranches that deforested the Amazon rainforest after October 2009, as well as those that used labor analogous to slavery, operated on areas embargoed by IBAMA, or were located on Indigenous lands or in environmental conservation units. The deadline for beginning to exclude direct supplier farms was six months after signing the agreement, while the deadline for monitoring and excluding indirect suppliers was up to two years—i.e., from October 2011.
JBS, then Bertin, and other meatpackers operating in the Amazon signed a consent decree with the Brazilian Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF), which came to be known as the “Beef TAC”. The agreement was signed after the MPF of the state of Pará and Ibama— Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, the federal agency responsible for enforcing environmental laws and protecting natural resources in Brazil—filed lawsuits in Federal Court against individuals and companies accused of deforestation linked to cattle ranching in Pará. The commitments, which at the time were limited to the state, included not buying from farms with illegal deforestation, farms on the lists of embargoed areas and labor analogous to slavery maintained by the Federal Government, or farms that violated the rights of Indigenous peoples, quilombola communities, and traditional populations. The decree also required companies to share their list of accredited suppliers with the MPF. The commitment focused exclusively on direct suppliers, without taking into account indirect supplier farms, where most of the deforestation related to cattle ranching occurs. As published by the MPF in 2023, the results of the audits on the Pará consent decree show that JBS did not reach the levels of [...]
A report by Greenpeace International, "Slaughtering the Amazon", revealed that JBS was linked to farms involved in illegal deforestation in the Amazon and in the use of modern slavery. According to the report, the meat from these farms contaminated the supply chains of major global companies such as Carrefour, Walmart, and Tesco. The cattle were slaughtered at meatpacking plants in Mato Grosso and then processed at facilities in the state of São Paulo for export. From the Araputanga (MT) plant, JBS exported fresh meat directly to Europe.
