New Challenges

Abstract

In an extremely demanding moment, when the policies prolong and deepen the suffering derived from the Covid-19 pandemic, Laborare journal has decided to publish this new edition. Our journal has become a reference for everyone who approaches topics related to the world of work, from a critical and transformative perspective.

In this edition, in addition to articles on the effects of the “reform” in relation to safety and health at work and the contemporary slavery, we also have a Dossier with articles about Work and Informality, under the coordination of the Special Editor, Professor Renata Dutra, from UnB.

The themes dialogues, after all, the informality has been potentiated the precariousness of the living conditions of the workers, as well as their health.
Decent work is included as an expression of the struggle for a diverse society because it is certain that the obligation to work, as a practically exclusive way to obtain a salary, and from that food, medicine, clothing and living, makes work as a form of subjection. Claiming respect for the dignity of people who need of the salary for alive, which implies the realization of social rights (social security and work), is the initial step to guarantee the material conditions of existence that allow the formulation and construction of other forms of sociability.

Hence the importance of texts that discuss the work environments in which the Labour Law does not enter. Transvestites, sellers of acarajé or cosmetics, workers on the street and on the digital platforms, they have color, gender, and class. The crux of these oppressions, as well analyzed in some articles here presented, only disguises the common root of predatory colonialism that marks our history and explains the resistance we have in the face of structural problems. We are in 2022, but racism and sexism are present as important markers of the precariousness of some specific types of work.

The importance of the discussions held here can be gauged by the recent news of workers beaten or killed because complains of the lack of salary. This kind of regression to barbarism is a sign of an even sadder reality: we had never got rid of it. We do not make effective those remedies that have been in the Constitution since 1988 and we still insist on nonsense such as the practice of just cause or the application of sanctions in the work environment. Therefore, we naturalize the precariousness and live with these spaces in which the hard social conquests simply do not exist as reality.

The situation of the workers in delivery apps is the most obvious, but it is not the only nor the most serious. It is certainly not the most ancient. Articulating themselves collectively, as proposed by one of the authors, is fundamental. It is in the fight that social conditions change. In this sense, the workers in delivery apps have relevant role of organization on this struggle.

Teleworking, which with the pandemic has become a goal, is another essential question, since the acceleration of this atomized and invisible way of working has repercussions that go beyond the individual or physical sphere. It affects social relationships, the way we understand each other in the world and how we exist, including politically.

Reading this issue of Laborare contributes a lot to reflect on the precariousness and informality of work, from a critical perspective and compromised with changes to promote decent work.

This edition is special, not only because of the topics covered and the quality of the articles, but also because it marks a new cycle of the journal - ends the period of Fernando Donato Vasconcelos as general editor of Laborare, which began in 2018 in issue 1 and which extends for four years and with many successes.

In front of Laborare will be the labor judge and professor Valdete Souto Severo, who is co-editor general since nº 4, in 2020, which, from the next edition, will have as co-editor general the labor inspector Emerson Victor Hugo Costa de Sá. They have the challenge to consolidate the publication, including new ways of indexing.

Good reading!