Government officials said staff were working excessively long hours while being kept in degrading circumstances in their accommodation
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenIgor Patrickin Rio de JaneiroPublished: 4:10am, 8 Apr 2026Updated: 4:13am, 8 Apr 2026Brazil’s labour ministry on Tuesday added Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD to a registry of employers found to have subjected workers to conditions analogous to slavery, limiting access to state financing and increasing reputational risks in its most important market outside China.The Ministry of Labour and Employment published the updated Cadastro de Empregadores, commonly known as the “dirty list”, adding 169 employers in the latest semi-annual revision.
BYD Auto do Brasil Ltda. was included following the conclusion of an administrative process stemming from a December 2024 rescue operation at the company’s factory construction site in Camaçari, in the northeastern state of Bahia.
A civil public action filed by the federal labour prosecutor’s office and seen by the South China Morning Post details the conditions inspectors found at the site.
When they arrived, there were almost no workers on site and the machinery stood at a standstill. Brazilian workers told auditors that their Chinese counterparts normally worked seven days a week, including public holidays, and that supervisors had given them the days off only because the inspection team was coming.
At one of four dormitories examined, inspectors found 107 passports locked in an administrative cabinet labelled in Mandarin as “security”; some had been held since August 2024, leaving workers without access to their own travel documents on weekends and outside business hours.
