The growing presence of Chinese companies in Latin America, as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has led to an increase in the number of human rights violations and labor exploitation complaints.
In Uruguay, the company China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC), responsible for building a power transmission network, has been charged with labor irregularities, inhumane working conditions, and the death of a worker.
In Brazil, the Labor Prosecutor’s Office (MPT) rescued 163 Chinese workers from a factory construction site for Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD, in Camaçari, Bahia. Jinjiang Goup, the BYD contractor, is accused of holding the workers in slavery-like conditions.
The Camaçari plant, which belonged to U.S. company Ford until 2023, will be BYD’s largest factory outside China, with the capacity to produce up to 150,000 cars a year in the first phase of operation and 300,000 in the second, according to Brazilian daily O Globo. Experts warn about the risks of such investments.
“Chinese companies often import negative aspects of their home country’s working culture. This results in a lack of respect for local norms, a preference for Chinese labor, and disregard for basic workers’ rights,” Gabriel Arruda de Castro, editor of Brazilian daily Gazeta do Povo, told Diálogo. “The case of Uruguay and the recent BYD episode in Brazil demonstrates this. Latin American countries need to re-evaluate the cost-benefit of Chinese investments in the region.”
Uruguay: grueling working hours
Uruguay’s National Union of Construction and Single Industries (SUNCA) has filed a criminal complaint against Chinese company CMEC for alleged forced labor during the construction of a high-voltage power line between the towns of Tacuarembó and Salto. “Since the beginning of the project, about two years ago, the union has denounced grueling working hours, unpaid wages, and undignified living conditions, especially for foreign workers,” Uruguayan radio station Carve reported. Of the 700 workers on site, 500 are foreigners, mainly Ecuadorian and Chinese citizens, according to Carve.
The unions’ demands intensified in February, when a vehicle used by CMEC overturned on the highway while transporting seven Chinese workers to their lodgings. One of them died, while others were hospitalized in serious condition. The vehicle “was quite unsafe,” said Anderson Ortiz, SUNCA departmental leader, Montevideo Portal reported.
“Labor inspections had already found irregularities [at the CMEC works], which resulted in the closure of some facilities. But poor conditions persist and there are fears of slavery-like forced labor,” MercoPress reported.
Uruguayan social organizations are advocating stricter labor safety laws and greater state supervision. “The company [CMEC] hires a mainly Chinese and Ecuadorian workforce housed in overcrowded and unsafe facilities,” MercoPress reported.
Brazil: degrading conditions
The conditions found in the lodgings at BYD’s factory in Bahia revealed an alarming picture of “precariousness and degradation,” the MPT said in a statement. In one of the lodgings, workers slept on beds without mattresses and had no closets for their belongings, which were mixed in with food. “The sanitary situation was especially critical, with only one bathroom for every 31 workers, forcing them to wake up at 4 a.m. to line up and get ready to leave for work at 5:30 a.m.,” the MPT said.
The facility’s kitchens operated in “alarming conditions,” without adequate cabinets to store food. “In one particularly serious case, construction materials were found next to the food, as well as food stored next to toilets, in unhealthy conditions,” the MPT said. The workers were also exposed to long hours under the sun, showing visible signs of skin damage, according to the investigation.
In addition to the degrading conditions, the MPT said that the situation amounted to forced labor: Workers were forced to pay bond and had 60 percent of their wages withheld, receiving only the remaining 40 percent in Chinese currency. Their passports were also withheld by the company. “Early termination of the contract implied the loss of the deposit, and the amounts withheld, as well as the obligation to pay for the return ticket and refund the value of the one-way ticket,” the MPT added.
BYD watches workers
Agência Pública, a Brazilian non-profit investigative journalism organization, made the mistreatment accusation against the BYD factory in Bahia known in November 2024. Soon after, BYD’s Brazilian subsidiary announced, “that it has terminated with immediate effect the contract of the outsourced company responsible for the work, Jinjiang Construction Brazil Ltda,” Spanish news agency EFE reported.
But concerns remain. A new Agência Pública report claims that BYD has installed cameras and put up signs prohibiting photos from being taken in the living quarters. The objective is to prevent further leaks of information about the factory. According to Agencia Pública, BYD has also installed a computer program that creates digital watermarks with employees’ names to track the origin of materials shared externally.
Far from new
Forced labor is far from a new issue with the BRI. In a November 2022 report, following a year-long in-depth investigation, the China Labor Watch warned that stories of abuse and mistreatment abounded in BRI projects worldwide.
Many Chinese workers are recruited through outsourcing and deceptive hiring practices that give little to no protection. “These practices include, but are not limited to, demanding security deposits, charging high fees, providing misleading information about conditions overseas, not offering written contracts, failing to purchase work-injury insurance, or arranging for workers to enter their host countries on tourist or business visas, then either willfully letting them overstay their visas, or otherwise forcing them to work illegally,” the report indicated.
According to the report, the experiences described by the many workers interviewed amounted to forced labor, with employers using deception, restriction of movement, isolation, physical violence, intimidation and threats, retention of identity documents, withholding of wages, and debt bondage.
“As the BRI creates a new global market for Chinese enterprises using Chinese capital and industrial technologies, it is also exporting a Chinese economic development model that exploits workers,” the report adds. “Behind the grand rhetoric of the BRI are ordinary workers whose voices are rarely heard and whose rights are routinely and systematically violated.”
Geopolitical problem
For Castro, China’s presence in Latin America must be seen in the context of Beijing’s foreign policy. “Unlike what happens when European or Japanese companies invest in the countries of the region, China’s investment represents more than new jobs or development projects: It represents an expansion of the Chinese government’s area of influence, under the planning of the Communist Party of China,” Castro said.
“There [in China], the separation between state interests and private interests is unclear or simply non-existent. That’s why China’s presence in Latin America needs to be seen as a geopolitical problem, and not just one of economic calculation,” Castro concluded.
