Mr Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
President
Government of Brazil
Subject: Victimisation of Labour Inspector Fernanda Giannasi in Brazil
Sir,
With due respect it is to bring to your urgent attention the ongoing victimisation of Labour Inspector Fernanda Giannasi in Brazil.
The announcement in Folha de Sao Paulo, a Brazilian newspaper on 28 March 2004 to the effect that Brazil will ban asbestos is a fruit of the tireless campaign both within the country and globally. The impending Brazilian ban on asbestos deserves genuine appreciation of the work done by anti-asbestos campaigners of Brazil and your concern for plight of asbestos victims. Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) congratulates the Brazilian activists on this success and awaits the details as to from what date is the ban going to be enforced and how it is going to be implemented.
Outlawing asbestos has been a hot political issue in Brazil in present times. Brazilian trade unions and various political groups wanted the fibre banned. Only two of Brazil’s 28 states, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul, have banned the trade in asbestos. Rio’s law goes further than banning – it covers compensation to victims.
When you came to India as the chief guest for our Republic Day in January 2004, you said, “Let us engage in globalisation which is attentive to social and environmental concerns which is fairer both politically and economically”.
On February 17, 2004, Labor Inspector Ms. Giannasi arrived in Criminal Court to stand trial for offending the honour of Almir Pazzianotto Pinto, a former Brazilian Labour Minister. Pinto has brought criminal complaint under Article 139 of the Penal Code. These are laws from the years of military dictatorship, which provides for criminal prosecution of critics of government officials.
Meanwhile the case could not proceed because the presiding Federal Judge, Joao Carlos Da Rocha Mattos, had been jailed on corruption charges, as a result of Operation Anaconda, one of Brazil’s biggest organized crime scandals. The judge has been arrested in government investigation of organised crime and has been charged with taking bribes to protect criminals. It is not a coincidence that Gianassi’s case went before this judge. Ms Gianassi has been a Labour Inspector in Sao Paulo State for more than twenty years. She has received both Brazilian and international honours for her work with asbestos victims; in 2001, she was a successful finalist in the prestigious Claudia Award for Brazil’s Woman of the Year and was elected a Fellow of the renowned Collegium Ramazzini.
As a civil servant, Inspector Giannasi has not had a salary increase in over seven years; the costs of Inspector Giannasi’s lawyers are being borne by the Inspector herself. Giannasi is still paying off the legal bills she incurred defending herself in the unsuccessful defamation action brought by the Brazilian asbestos company, Eternit S.A., in 1998.
We, the members of Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) request you to please ensure justice and fairness in the struggle to get asbestos banned globally banned. Your government may have taken take note of the fact that two major players EU, US and more than 30 countries have been forced to eliminate asbestos of all forms. It would be appropriate and befitting your stature to abide by your own words and use your good offices to ensure that Ms. Gianassi who is working for the social and environmental concerns, the policies, which you advocated during your visit to India, is not victimised.
In 1985, Saint Gobain company’s trade union illegally replaced an independent union, which had organized a strike at the company’s biggest factory. Ms. Gianassi is charged with insulting an ex-Labor Minister who supported a trade union founded by asbestos multinational Saint Gobain.
She has been charged because she had denounced the creation of the false Union controlled by the French multinational Saint-Gobain. This is disturbing her discussion to settle compensation for 2,500 victims which has been going on for three years and termed the company’s offer as derisory and insulting. This company is gradually converting its former cement plants to make fiber cement building products using PVA fibers instead of asbestos.
The creation of the Union is contrary to the provisions of law because it didn’t comply with the law which determined that for a body to become a Union there has to be an association with 3 years of existence but the then minister had accepted that the association could be made Union with only 1 year of existence.
It can be proved that the affiliated members who appear in the documents to create the Union never learnt about the existence of such association and some of these members are part of the asbestos victims association. They have also declared officially that they had never participated in any such association. One of the listed members in the directory of the association is the director of the asbestos victims association.
The assembly to transform the association into Union was held on 29th December, 1985 when the factories were closed because of collective vacation and all the Unions were in recess for the Christmas and New Year’s Party. One of the members showed as affiliated was already Director of a Union that Saint-Gobain planned to remove. Can any one imagine somebody creating a Union that would replace his own Union and loose their condition of Unionist ? These mistakes are grossly manifest.
If all these documents could be put together in Fernanda’s defence the ex-minister, Saint Gobain and the Union would be caught in a knot. Therefore, they are doing everything to discredit and condemn her.
Earlier on January 28, 2004, Labor Inspectors Nelson Jose da Silva, Eratostenes de Almeida Gonsalves and Joao Batista Soares Lage were brutally murdered on a public highway. They were on their way to raid a soybean plantation, which was, it is alleged, using illegal slave labour.
What is at stake is the life interest of workers and consumers which Fernanda represents on the one hand and the dubious reputation of an ex-Labour Minister, credibility of the Saint Gobain with its 400 years history, which controls the market of the building materials in Brazil and a powerful “Yellow” Union on the other hand.
On February 20, 2004, she was officially informed that she was no longer authorized to carry out inspections or mobilize workers and be confined to the Sao Paulo office.
We in India are highly appreciative of your Operation Anaconda to root out corruption in Brazil. We are confident that your urgent intervention in the matter of Ms. Gianassi would set matters right.
Thanking you
Gopal Krishna
Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI)
CC/
Ministry of Justice
Labor Ministry
Senator Eduardo Suplicy
Deputado Joao Paulo Cunha
Deputado Roberto Gouveia
Saint-Gobain
Please write to the concerned authorities to bring this injustice to an end
pr@planalto.gov.br Cc:
secom@planalto.gov.br gabinetemj@mj.gov.br ministro@mte.gov.br esuplicy@senador.senado.gov.br joaopaulocunha@terra.com.br gabinete@robertogouveia.org.br 
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