The PP councilor in the Guntín City Hall (Lugo), José Vázquez Barreiro, accepted a nine-month prison sentence for the crime of labor exploitation committed against two workers of Moroccan nationality in an irregular situation. He and two members of his family had employed them on their livestock farm, Casa do Coxo, and the prosecution document states that they were forced to work 13 hours a day, without a contract, without registration with social security and without weekly rest or vacations. They were paid 700 euros a month, from which they deducted 50 euros for accommodation in an annex of the farm.
The BNG has made public that Vázquez Barreiro is one of the three ranchers convicted in this case – the other two are his relatives – and is requesting his immediate expulsion after learning of the sentence, handed down as part of a judicial compliance agreement that resulted in the three defendants reducing the initial sentence requested by the prosecution (three years in prison) and which is complemented by compensation for the two workers for a total of 44,000 euros, reports Europa Press.
Vázquez Barreiro participated in the municipal elections of May 2023 as number five of the PP list, formerly led by María José Gómez, now Minister of Rural Affairs. Gómez left the mayoralty in the hands of Ángel Pérez last April, when the president of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, included her in his new government.
“The outgoing mayor, currently the rural minister, will have to give explanations, since it was she who chose him to be part of the candidacy and the events for which he was judged were prior to his election,” the BNG said in a statement.
The prosecutor’s document states that one of the workers started working on the farm on October 12, 2018, in an irregular manner. The other employee, in identical working conditions, started working on March 1, 2020, and shared accommodation with his other colleague. The Public Prosecutor’s Office stated that both workers assumed this work schedule contrary to the regulations due to their situation, since they were migrants, in an irregular situation, did not know the language and had no economic resources. Both workers served until August 2020, when they went to a shelter.
