Works analogous to slavery: an analysis of slaves in the 21st century in Brazil

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on Brazil and its works analogous to slavery that has been widely used within the business practices of global capital and is a topic little explored in administration research. The article analyzes the unfolding of works analogous to slavery in the 21st century. This qualitative study consists of a bibliographic and documentary research based on the perspective of dialectical and historical materialism. It analyzes secondary data from infraction notices from the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, the ministry’s list of companies engaged in slave labor, and data from Radar SIT (statistics and information dashboard of labor inspection in Brazil) between 1995 and 2022. In addition, this study collected information from journalistic articles that portrayed inspections of modern slave labor, thus enabling examples of this practice in contemporary times. The findings show that the very lack of more assertive public policies and the fragility of the criminal applicability of Brazilian legislation have challenged the eradication of modern slave labor in the country.