The future of labor inspection as a public policy

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the reflections around the challenging question: what is the future of Labor Inspection as a public policy in Brazil? After a brief historical reconstruction of the institutionalization of Labor Inspection in Brazil, the current place of work in Brazilian society and the economy is critically analyzed, in the light of the profound changes in the world of work, dictated by the new technologies, and mainly dictated by boundless and unethical neoliberalism. As other authors do, the determinant processes of the "metamorphoses" of work and the main current morphologies are analyzed. These include changes in the concept of work; changes in the characterization of people labeled as workers - men and women -; changes in the spatial location of working people; the progressive the progressive mischaracterization of time stolen and consumed by work in people's lives; and, lastly, include the increasing misrepresentation of who are the formal and legally responsible persons or organizations. These profound changes have a direct impact on the traditional logic of Labor Inspection, and require alternatives and references to a new logic to be sought. It is defended the thesis that, in the short term, the logic of the Unified Health System - SUS, whose main strategy is Primary Health Care (Primary Care, Family Health Strategy), regionalized and territorialized, could serve as a strategy for conjugation and harmonization of public policies of Labor Inspection and Labor Surveillance and Workers- Health and Safety, considering the high coverage and capillarity of this Public System in Brazil. In the medium and long term, there are challenging spaces to rethink other approaches. Large bibliography supports this document.