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Brazil in the Changing Context of Work
Brazil in the Changing Context of Work
Abstract Submissions Closed
Tuesday, 23 February 2021: 09:00-10:30
Location:
RC30 Sociology of Work (host committee)
Language: English, French and Spanish
Session Type: Oral
Invited Session
The post-2008 crisis of capitalism, in Brazil, has set new challenges for interpreting flexibilization. This context makes it necessary to identify the orientations adopted by companies and States, and the changes that occurred on the workplace (an increased participation of women, for example). An inherent characteristic of the flexibility pattern is a greater control over working time, and a more intensive productivity, and discipline. Flexibility actually does not prevent the extreme exploitation of workforce, nor the continuation of child labor and other situations close to slavery. The current debates about labor therefore needs to analyse the process of destruction of social protection, originally created in the Constitution of 1988. It raises the question of the integrative function of labor in society, taking into account the significant withdrawal of the State. Informality and self-management gradually turned out to be considered as positive phenomena, while subcontracting became an instrument to reduce the costs of labor and to transfer the business risks to the workforce; and , since the 1990’s, flexibility, subcontracting and lower job security have put trade unions under pressure. The aim of this session is analyzing these outstanding changes , discussing the reasons of the failure of the participation of all types of workers in the movements promoting progressive social transformations. In other words, the challenge of reappropriation of history and practices of struggle and resistance of workers will be at stake, in order to question the neoliberal strategies that have been implemented during the last years.
Session Organizer: