TRANSFORMATIONS OF WORK AND SOCIAL WORK

A STUDY ABOUT SUFFERING AND PROFESSIONAL DISEASE IN THE UNIFIED SOCIAL ASSISTANCE SYSTEM

Abstract

This text aims to analyze the impacts of the productive restructuring in the social-occupational spaces of social workers, seeking to identify the reflections on the workers’ health. For this, we use the Unified Social Assistance System as an example. The starting point is the understanding of the transformations of the work in progress since the 1970s at the international level. In Brazil, the changes in the forms of management and regulation of work are mixed with the historical particularities of the country, economically subordinated to economic centers. From the corrosion of formal and regulated work, the manifestations of suffering and illness at work are amplified. It is based on the assumption that social workers work in these refractions of the “social issue” and, at the same time, experience them in the condition of wage-earning. Methodologically, we review the bibliography of authors linked to Marx's social theory that deal with productive restructuring and its consequences. About Social Work, we used as a theoretical framework the contributions of Marilda Iamamoto, José Paulo Netto, Ana Elizabete Mota and Raquel Raichelis. In order to contemplate the discussion about Unique Social Assistance System as a socio-occupational space, we resorted to texts and research about the Social Assistance policy and the demands placed on social workers. To reflect on situations of suffering and illness at work, we used results from previous research. It was found that the retraction and deregulation of work impact the relative professional autonomy of social workers, generating ethical conflicts and mental suffering in the face of the impotence to exercise a dignified professional practice.