A nova morfologia do trabalho no comércio varejista : uma análise a partir das mudanças ocorridas no trabalho e nas relações de trabalho no setor lojista de Cachoeira do Sul (RS).

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the transformations that have occurred in labor and labor relations in the retail sector of Cachoeira do Sul (RS), considering the conditions resulting from both the dynamics of productive restructuring and recent reforms in labor legislation in Brazil. It is assumed that the changes promoted in Brazilian capitalism since the 1990s, driven by the neoliberal orientation adopted by national governments, alter the morphology of labor, affecting the forms of insertion and permanence of workers in the labor market. Based on the problems presented, the general objective that guided the development of the dissertation was to investigate how the dynamics of productive restructuring, an expression of technological and organizational changes, together with the labor counter-reform that occurred in Brazil in 2017, have an impact on the morphology of labor in the retail sector of the municipality of Cachoeira do Sul. The following specific objectives are derived from this general objective: to analyze how the retail trade in Cachoeira do Sul is organized, especially with regard to the size and employability of the establishments; to investigate the technological and organizational transformations carried out in the retail sector of Cachoeira do Sul in the recent period; to analyze the changes that have occurred in the work and labor market of the retail sector of Cachoeira do Sul in terms of employment and unemployment, forms of employability and forms of hiring; to investigate what are the expressions of the new morphology of work, present and implied in the modes of organization of work and production in the retail sector of Cachoeira do Sul. As a method of approach, the work was guided by historical materialism, articulating bibliographical review, collection of secondary data and application of a research form to 100 workers who work in the retail sector of Cachoeira do Sul. From this perspective, the dissertation highlights how technological innovations, organizational changes and legal deregulations have deepened the precariousness and flexibilization of work in the retail trade. The morphology of work that is present in the retail trade, in this sense, expressing profound and structural changes in the way work is organized and carried out in contemporary societies, implies phenomenal expressions such as greater work intensity, greater control over workers, flexibilization in the use of time and professional capabilities, flexibilization of employment relationships, low wages, and subjective feelings that refer to a work contexto in which it is always necessary to give more, even if the rewards are not within the workers' reach. A condition, therefore, of precariousness, indicative of different forms of insecurity and uncertainty for many people who live from work. From the point of view of regional development, the Dissertation contributes to highlighting how global transformations in the world of work, expressions of the structural forms of organization of the productive process by capital, are territorialized in regional configurations that, in fact, are not in the metropolitan regions of Brazil, including medium-sized and even small cities.