Record profits, suppressed wages, and the usual contempt for those who sustain production
On its official website, JBS claims that it puts people at the center of its business model. It promises respect, dialogue, and social responsibility. However, in its meatpacking plants, its own workers’ experience refutes that narrative.
Amalia Antúnez
22 | 1 | 2026
There, conditions are imposed by force, wages are kept low, and bargaining is avoided. The distance between what the company preaches and what it practices is not a mistake; it is cynicism in its purest form.
Every day, some 2,000 pigs are slaughtered in the Carambeí plant located in the southern state of Paraná, which employs close to 970 workers. There, where every minute counts and every body is a cog in a constantly moving machinery, the world’s largest meat processor once again makes it crystal clear where its priorities lie.
For years, the Brazilian multinational corporation has not been granting its workforce real wage raises and it recently put forward a wage adjustment proposal based solely on inflation.
Meanwhile, the company continues to report record-breaking earnings globally. But the problem is not just about a wage adjustment percentage.
Yesterday SEARA/JBS workers in Carambeí decided to go on strike.