Meio ambiente do trabalho saudável: obrigatoriedade e responsabilização do empregador

Abstract

The subject of the following monograph is “Work environment – Shell/Basf Case – a new paradigm on the accountability of the employers”. In 1977 the Shell company started to operate in Brazil, specifically in the city of Paulínia, where began the formulation and synthesis of organochlorines and orgaphospates compounds, and right after the opening of the factory the Environmental Company of the State of São Paulo (CETESB) started to receive innumerable claims due to the strong smell of the toxic products. As the years went by the claims continued and only in 1979 the Environmental Company of the State of São Paulo (CETESB) made and inspection, in which were found buckets with defects and drums with residuals of pesticides, which were responsible for the emission of pollutants in the atmosphere originating from the operation of incineration. Ten years after the inspection, Shell performed a license request to the Environmental Company of the State of São Paulo with the intention of using a industrial landfill to receive the cinders of the process of incineration and the affluents originating from the ponds of evaporation, which was granted only three years later. Only in 1995 in the attempt to sell the company to the north-american conglomerate American Cyanamid Co. it was realized an environmental inspection, by imposition to the effectuation of the selling, then discovering the contamination of the water tables and the local ground, result of the inappropriate treatment of the industrial waste, of the waters treatment, of the using of the incinerator of liquids and the basin of evaporation. After the inspection, Shell presented a self-declaration, assuming the contamination and your results. Five years later Cyanamid was bought by Basf S/A that operated for two more years, when was interdicted by the Work and Employment Ministry together with the Work Public Ministry. It makes clear the exposition of the workers of the company to a lot of chemical agents of high toxicity, before the inappropriate conditions of handling, production, packing and transport of the feedstock, products and derivative of the process of degradation. Another fact was the very high incidence of serious and lethal diseases between the employers making clear the failure and inefficiency of the equipments of individual protection eventually provided. Thus, in view of the seriousness of the situation and the serious consequences brought to the lives of the employees, the present case has taken on a large scale and national relevance in the Brazilian judiciary, and has become a new landmark in the employer's accountability, Reflections to all Brazilian society, which is why we take this case as the basis and analogy for presenting this research, especially to indicate the employer's obligation to maintain a healthy work environment and its consequences in violating this constitutional guarantee