Crowds of informal, socially unprotected workers who come to be controlled, managed and subordinated to companies that form oligopolies in the sectors in which they operate. This is the result of the phenomenon of uberization, according to sociologist Ludmila Abílio, a researcher at the Institute of Advanced Studies (IEA) at the University of São Paulo (USP), who highlighted work on demand as a characteristic of this model. Driver Jonas Eduardo Ferreira started working through transport apps after being fired in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. “I always worked CLT [formalizado] my whole life, in the pandemic due to lack of a CLT job, I had to migrate to self-employment, which would be the application.” São Paulo (SP), 04/28/2023 – Application driver Jonas Ferreira talks about the pros and cons of self-employment. Photo: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil – Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil “Since we don’t have a record, when you get sick, the car breaks down, someone in the family needs you, what do you do? Do not do. Because we have to make our own salary, our own 13th, our own vacations, we have to plan for that. That’s what I try to do, I always try to leave a little money aside for those hours”, said Ferreira. To qualify for retirement, the worker has contributed to the National Institute of Social Security (INSS) as an Individual Microentrepreneur (MEI), but reinforced that there are no other labor guarantees. “My retirement I think about trying to save some money, which is also difficult, and paying MEI. Other than that, we have no guarantees.” Against this model, scientists are working on a practical solution. Lawyer Paula Freitas, coordinator of the Labor Reform Studies and Monitoring Network (Remir), was part of a group that worked on building a platform that tries to shift the focus of company contracts to self-employed workers controlled by digital platforms, allowing the regulation of rights for people with multiple jobs. This May 1st, the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT) completes 80 years. The legislation was created by Decree-Law 5,452 of 1943 and sanctioned by President Getúlio Vargas, during the Estado Novo. The CLT unified the existing labor legislation in the country until then. In this framework, Agência Brasil publishes a special report that takes up the historical background for the achievement of these rights, the changes over time and the current scenario of the World of Work, especially in the face of digitization. Alternative The Integra Brasil platform proposed by Remir could be used to manage hours worked and calculate the amounts that each company should bear in relation to labor rights. The project emerged as a result of a doctorate by Freitas, network coordinator, and researcher at the Center for Trade Union Studies and Labor Economics (Cesit), at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp). “The nomenclature [relações de trabalho ou trabalhadores gerenciados por meio de plataformas digitais] it is important because it establishes a foundation that these work relationships are established with companies that explore traditional sectors of the economy such as, for example, delivery and also driver, passenger transport, however, in the business model, they organize production, the work process, incorporating digital platforms.” She believes that it is a new business model, in which the organization of the workforce is made up of applications, which are these digital platforms, which differs from the functioning of traditional work in industry or even in the service sector. “The legal regime that we recognize is the employment relationship, but with a new reconfiguration, because it is no longer the employment relationship for an employer, but the employment relationship for multiple companies. And this ends up bringing a perspective that we have to maintain labor rights, we have to maintain social and labor protection as a foundation, as the CLT has already preached since its foundation, but adapting to this reality”. The proposal is that this adaptation be made considering the sum of the employee’s activity times for the multiple companies and dividing the social and labor costs according to the time that he effectively worked for each company. São Paulo (SP), 04/28/2023 – Application driver Jonas Ferreira talks about the pros and cons of self-employment. Photo: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil – Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil “In order to be able to do this count, formalize this work and guarantee work inspection, the idea that we bring is to create a public and governmental platform, Integra Brasil , which mirrors the information from the activities carried out and integrates this information.” For driver Jonas Ferreira, a platform along these lines should already be in operation, as the driver-by-app mode has lasted for years. However, he believes that the guarantee of rights for the category is still far away. “If we had a portfolio record, even if it was a minimum wage, it would be good, because we would have the benefits, but in this case, the application has no benefits. You work the day you want, the day you can, you make your schedule. This is the advantage, the disadvantage is that there is no guarantee.” Regarding people’s desire to get rid of the figure of the boss that can lead to adherence to the platforms, Ludmila Abílio adds that some workers, in the pre-uberization period, saw in the delivery profession a better remuneration and a different relationship with the different city. “You are in the public space there all the time and it is very precarious, but at the same time it brings a sense of freedom. The worker finds it interesting. but it was [uma condição de trabalho] very degraded.” On-demand work For the sociologist, uberization is not necessarily synonymous with work on digital platforms, but a broader process that has been ongoing for decades in the world of work. “The central issue of uberization refers to the transformation of us workers into on-demand workers, who no longer have any guarantees about how long they need to work to earn the minimum necessary for their survival, about the value of their hourly work, about how work is distributed,” said Abílio. The sociologist has been researching uberization as a new organization in the world of work and has mapped out how precariousness occurs in this model: long hours, without the right to vacation, weekly rest or sick leave. “We can foresee that this is a process, that we look at the motoboy today and understand, but that it is going through the world of work as a whole.” Hiring legal entities, according to the sociologist, was already a first step in what would become the definition of uberization. “It was already a symbol that ‘look, there’s something going on here that new forms of worker subordination are being created’”. “The labor reform will modify the concept of formal work, so for example, today, you have this category called intermittent employment, which is you being a formal worker, but living as an on-demand worker. That’s why I like to say that uberization is not something that started with digital platforms, it is a process that has been going on for decades in the world of work”, she said.
Agência Brasil
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