van der Linden, Marcel. Trabalhadores do mundo: ensaios para uma história global do trabalho

Abstract

In the Belgian Congo at the end of the nineteenth century, in his voyage into the heart of darkness of 'modern man,' Joseph Conrad found many Bacongos who had died from working on the building of King leopoldo's railway, as well as witnessing the flight of those who had refused to be recruited. In the middle of the twenty-first century in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a New York Times report found that 90% of miners worked in slave-like conditions to extract tungsten and tin used in electronic devices consumed in different parts of the globe. lamentably, they are not an exception. Min Min, a pseudonym used to avoid retaliation, was recruited at 19 in her native land, Myanmar, to work on fishing boats in the neighboring Thailand, in the hope of finding better days, as her 'agent' promised her. Reaching the docks, he told her: "I am your owner." Min Min found herself forced to work up to 20 hours per days, from Sunday to Sunday, without receiving any pay. When she tried to flee, she was captured and tortured with hooks. The good news is that after nine years of nightmares, Min Min managed to escape and return to her house. "I feel free," she says (Potenza, 2014). Most of the around 30 million workers submitted to 'contemporary slavery' in more than 160 countries, according to a report on compulsory work in the current world, did not have the same fortune (Global Slavery Index, n.d., p.7). It is well known that from the Congo of the time of Conrad to the fishing boats of Thailand of our days, 'modern' slavery throve from the time of the Discoveries to the nineteenth century, before being prohibited in law. More than this, any work not considered 'free' is morally objectionable. Nevertheless, slavery remains present. It is like something different from what was arranged, but this impression is quickly undone when we perceive that the history of capitalism, since the expansion of the world market in the fourteenth century, has always been the history of compulsory labor, by physical and economic