Several workers testify that some factories deny them daily food rations when average productivity is less than 10 tons of sugar cane per day.  Recent reports indicate that wages are declining in several locations. In the Itapolis region in Sao Paulo, the pay for a box of oranges is only R$ 0.30 (USD $0.15) while in 2001 the price was R$ 1.30 (USD $0.60).   In the Riberão Preto region, factory owners distribute a glucose-based liquid to workers after lunch time in order to compensate for their lack of food to meet the demands of growing productivity.   Because workers use so much energy, there are many cases of cramping and severe back pain.  Dehydration due to the unrelenting rhythm of the work—a worker swings his knife 9,700 times a day to reach the average 10 tons of sugar canes—causes cramps and  provokes numerous physical problems including heart attacks.

Migrant Workers in the Ribeirão Preto Region

Maria Aparecida de Moraes Silva*

Several conferences on the subject of the seasonal migrant workers in the region of Riberão Preto in São Paulo have reflected on the importance of the past in the process of individual and social formation. We defend the idea that the past is not something dead, frozen, and fixed in a time that that will never come back.  On the contrary, only understanding the past allows us to explain the present and establish the basis of any future project.

The beginning of this story lies in the era of Brazil’s military dictatorship when modern agriculture’s imposition in the Riberão Preto region was heralded by the implantation of large sugar and alcohol processing plants.  At the same time, this modern agriculture demanded large amounts of laborers who came from all over the country, constituting a work force of thousands of temporary migrants.  Given the constraints of the production process, laborers lived divided between two seasons:  that in the cane fields, orange orchards and coffee fields of the region, and at their original homes.

We also highlight the importance of the history of the original homes and regions of these laborers, which are frequently marked by land grabs by large ranchers, land-sellers or national and international companies from small holders (parceiros, posseiros and sitiantes).  Recent decades have seen thousands come and go from these regions, destined for hard work in the agricultural system.  The beginning of the 1990s, the mechanization of sugar cane production and then the coffee harvest brought a decline in the labor requirements of large farms and blocked the migratory currents.  This also created unemployment and, in many cases, social exclusion which can be seen in the quantity of wanderers and people living in the street. 

 Nonetheless, in recent years migratory mapping of the region has been redefined.  Until the end of the 1990s, the majority of migrants were from the interior of the state of Bahia and from the Jequitinhonha Valley in Minas Gerais.  These migrants traveled to farms in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, where there have been many denunciations of slave labor.  Many workers living in this region have also been relocated to factories where the mechanization of the sugarcane harvest was beginning.  This cannot be understood as a simple transfer of labor between factories, which could be seen as maintaining the same level of employment, but as a strategy for intensifying the exploitation of workers. 

Many of these migrants are from the states of Maranhão, Ceará, Alagoas, and Piauí.  These are states that in the past had little participation in the migratory process.  We can explain changes in the migratory mapping of the region with two factors.  The first one is the process of usurpation of peasant land in the savannah, now occupied by soy plantations.  The other is the massive intensification of the work rhythm, which increased the average amount of sugarcane cut per day to 12 tons.  This fact weighs directly upon the physical capacity of workers, and consequently on their age, inasmuch as once over 30 years of age workers have difficulty being employed.  Therefore, the arrival of other migrants fills the function of restoring, by means of supplying more labor, the consumption demanded by large companies.

The absences of working alternatives, as well as the omissions of the State, have created the basis for exploitation. In the struggle for their right to survive, the workers endure the condition of pariahs or beggars. These people do not migrate because they want to.   We defend the idea that it is a forced migration, imposed by the actual social, economic and political structure.

The increasing precariousness of the work is manifested in the diminishing salaries, constant delays in payment, and the violation of rights acquired over the course of several decades of struggle by sugarcane cutters in the region.

Several workers testify that some factories deny them daily food rations when average productivity is less than 10 tons of sugarcane per day.  Recent reports indicate that wages are declining in several locations. In the Itapolis region in Sao Paulo, the pay for a box of oranges is only R$ 0.30 (USD $0.15) while in 2001 the price was R$ 1.30 (USD $0.60).   In the Riberão Preto region, factory owners distribute a glucose-based liquid to workers after lunch time in order to compensate for their lack of food to meet the demands of growing productivity.   Because workers use so much energy, there are many cases of cramping and severe back pain.  Dehydration due to the unrelenting rhythm of the work—a worker swings his knife 9,700 times a day to reach the average 10 tons of sugarcane—causes cramps and numerous physical problems including heart attacks.

From 2004 to 2005 there were 13 deaths of workers in sugarcane fields in São Paulo, presumably because of intensive working conditions. Because of the excessive labor, many workers have convulsions, including shivering, and sweats. 

In relation to the factories in this region, labor intensification is associated with unhealthy conditions – excessive heat, smoke from burnt sugarcane mixed with agricultural chemicals, and bad working body posture, because the sugarcane has to be cut three centimeters from the ground.

* Maria Aparecida de Moraes e Silva is a visiting professor of  PPG/Geografia/USP and PPG/Geografia/UNESP.   Sociologist and CNPq researcher, she is the author of the book “Errante do fim do século”  (Wanderers of the End of the Century) (Edunesp, 1999).