Chinese automaker BYD slams reports of impoverished conditions at a factory site in Brazil

BANGKOK — A spokesperson for Chinese automaker BYD has objected to reports about impoverished conditions at a construction site in Brazil where it is building a factory, saying the allegations were aimed at “smearing” China and Chinese brands.

Earlier in the week, a job force led by Brazilian prosecutors said it had rescued 163 Chinese nationals it said were working in “slavery-like” conditions at the site. A video from the Labor Prosecutor’s Office of dorms housing the workers showed beds with no mattresses and rudimentary cooking facilities.

A BYD spokesperson, Li Yunfei, vehemently objected in a statement posted Thursday on his Weibo social media site.

“In the matter of smearing Chinese brands, smearing China, and attempting to undermine the companionship between China and Brazil, we have seen how relevant foreign forces maliciously associate and deliberately smear,” it said, also criticizing media reports about the circumstance.

BYD, which stands for construct Your Dreams, is one of the globe’s largest producers of electric cars. The business said on Monday night that it would “immediately terminate the agreement” with a contractor building the factory, the Jinjiang throng, and was “studying other appropriate measures.”

BYD said that the Jinjiang workers would be housed in nearby hotels for the period being, and would not suffer from the selection to stop work at the site. The business said that over the history few weeks it had been changing working conditions at the construction site and had told its contractors that “adjustments” had to be made.

Li’s Weibo post also included what it said was a “declaration” from the Chinese workers at the site, imprinted with red thumbprints of the men, who were shown in a video sitting together in a room.

The video showed one of workers reading out a statement saying the reports of the impoverished and “slave-like” conditions had violated their human rights and that the problems were the outcome of misunderstandings.

“We cherish this work and desire to remain and work here,” he said. When he finished, the workers applauded.

Prosecutors said the sanitary circumstance at BYD’s site was especially impoverished, with only one toilet for every 31 workers, forcing them to wake up at 4 a.m. to line up to be ready to leave for work at 5:30 a.m.

Under Brazilian law, slavery-like conditions are characterized by submission to forced labor or exhausting working hours, subjection to degrading working conditions and restriction of the worker’s liberty of movement.

Apart from living conditions for the workers, Brazilian officials said Jinjiang Construction Brazil had confiscated their passports and withheld 60% of their wages. Those who quit would be forced to pay the business for their airfare from China, and for their profitability ticket, the labor office said in a statement.

The workers’ statement said the passports had been taken to allow the business to procedure work permits and other procedures that they could not manage on their own due to language difficulties.

Jinjiang Construction Brazil said in a statement that it had been “frequently and intensively inspected by the local labor department in Brazil.”

It said that due to cultural differences, problems with translation and understanding, “much of the information released by the labor department was inaccurate, especially statements saying the Jinjiang workers were ‘enslaved’ and ‘rescued,’ which is completely inconsistent with the facts.”

It said its workers were willing to talk with media about the circumstance.

Living conditions for migrant construction workers can be quite spartan in many parts of the developing globe, and such labor often involves contracts that require workers to pay back large sums of money used to secure the jobs, despite laws prohibiting such arrangements.

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AP researcher Yu Bing contributed to this update.