Brazilian designer brand company convicted for sweatshop labor practices

A São Paulo labor court sentenced M5 Indústria e Comércio, owner of the designer brand M. Officer, to a $1.87 million fine for subjecting workers to near-slavery conditions. Of this amount, $650 million is worth of social dumping liabilities, which means that the company has benefited from low costs resulting from the exploitation of labor working in substandard conditions to gain unfair competitive advantage.

“The outcome of the lawsuit sets an important precedent and advances anti-slavery efforts. This has been the first conviction since the enactment of a state law in 2013 to impose fiscal sanctions on companies that exploit near-slave labor as part of their production processes,” said Prosecutor Rodrigo Castilho.

In the lawsuit against M5, labor prosecutors argued that M. Officer clothing was manufactured by workers serving strenuously long hours in degrading conditions that pose risks to health, safety, and life. According to prosecutors, this has been an established production standard at the company “with a view to mitigating costs by exploiting a economically and socially vulnerable workforce.”

In one of the locations, workers were paid less than $2 for each piece they made working an average 14 hours a day. Six Bolivian workers were rescued from living with their families at their place of work, operating sewing machines close to exposed wires, gas cylinders, and heaps of clothes, according to the indictment documents.

The M5 was described by prosecutors as operating under the sweating system, a production practice commonly found in the fashion industry. “It consists of industrial plants illegally expanding into underground levels in order to keep workers—often human trafficking victims—working and living in the same space, working nearly for free, enduring strenuously long working hours and subhuman conditions,” prosecutors said.

M. Officer was created by Brazil's fashion designer Carlos Miele with a focus on teen clothes and accessories. M5 could not be reached for comment as of the publication of this story.

With information from M. Officer's website.

Translated by Mayra Borges