Reestruturação produtiva na produção de carvão vegetal no Norte de Minas Gerais

Abstract

This research analyzes the profile of charcoal producers and workers employed in such companies, focusing mainly on the analysis of the changes in the production process of charcoal from the eucalyptus forestry in the municipalities of Grão Mogol and Claro dos Poções in the North of Minas Gerais. The study’s methodology explored the bibliographic and field research. As a result, this study shows that the changes in the workplace affected so striking workers and companies. However, it was revealed an antinomy in the field of corporate restructuring. While some charcoal remain precarious and archaic systems in the production of charcoal, with its workers in total unsanitary environments, others decided to go for modernization, with cutting-edge technologies, such as, for example, mechanization and the use of software to control carbonization. On the one hand, workers feel the consequences of overexploitation and employers resent the low productivity, on the other hand workers qualify, gain a better health environment, but the modernization destroys jobs. This research also concludes that articulates often an archaic production chain with the advanced market of steelmakers.