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\n <\/picture>\n\u201cIn 2015, we received a series of reports of physical and psychological violence inflicted on employees of the institution,\u201d says Silvio Beltramelli Neto, a prosecutor at the Public Labor Prosecutor\u2019s Office and professor of law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas (PUC-Campinas). \u201cSince we were already familiar with Vilela\u2019s work, we decided to join forces to find a solution to the problems that afflicted the health of those workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first step taken by the FSP-USP team was conducting an ethnographic survey at the facility, which included observing the daily work environment, allowing for a detailed analysis of the dynamics of the directors, employees, and the teenage inmates. \u201cWe observed a stressful environment, which included harassment and both physical and verbal abuse,\u201d says Beltramelli. In this environment, the employees were always in place of insecurity and \u201cputting out fires.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group of researchers investigated historical and cultural aspects that could provide clues to the origins of the conflicts. They noted that the workers perpetuated the violent practices learned from the model of the former State Foundation for the Well-being of Minors (FEBEM), which has been replaced with the Funda\u00e7\u00e3o Casa. \u201cAlthough social and educational activities were offered to the inmates, such as vocational training, the employees repeated practices such as excessive punishment and \u2018containment measures\u2019 when handling the adolescents,\u201d says Vilela.<\/p>\n
The inmates were subjected to daily, thorough intimate searches. \u201cThis practice discourages healthy bonding between the employees and the inmates,\u201d says Vilela, pointing out that, without such bonding, resocialization is compromised. \u201cAll of this contributed to the employees getting sick, as they did not have the emotional support to handle the complexity of that environment.\u201d Gradually, they built a space for dialogue between the employees, the inmates, and the members from the institution\u2019s multidisciplinary team. \u201cThe inmates were no longer seen as criminals by the employees, who, in turn, began working more closely with the institution\u2019s pedagogues and social workers, which helped them welcome and care for the young inmates,\u201d points out Beltramelli.<\/p>\n
The results of this experiment are still being tested and consolidated, but initial improvements in the workers\u2019 well-being is already being recognized, says Vilela, based on testimonials from the employees themselves. \u201cWe are observing a gradual reversal of the vicious cycle of violence that has been prevalent there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea behind the Laborat\u00f3rio de Mudan\u00e7as was conceived in the 1990s, by researchers at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Since then, the method has been applied in hospitals, schools, and infrastructure projects in more than 30 countries. \u201cThis approach helps participants from different hierarchical levels to identify historical contradictions in an environment and test out solutions to overcome these obstacles,\u201d explains Vilela. \u201cIn this process, more humane productive systems emerge.\u201d<\/p>\n Physician Luiz Carlos Fadel, a researcher at the Department of Human Rights, Health, and Cultural Diversity at FIOCRUZ, is optimistic about the initiative. However, he has some reservations: \u201cFor it to become large enough to produce concrete transformation in large companies, local problems, identified \u2019on the factory floor,\u2019 must be correlated with global challenges that directly or indirectly influence the health of workers, such as an increase in financialization related to the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n Fadel believes that, in this process, companies adopt strategies to reduce costs and increase shareholder profits in the short term. \u201cThis logic produces a very violent work environment, which stimulates competition among workers through increasingly aggressive goals and workloads.\u201d In this context, says Fadel, employees are more likely to experience health problems over time, such as muscle pain and hearing loss from intense noise. \u201cFurthermore, overworked employees can also develop mental disorders such as anxiety and depression.\u201d<\/p>\n Working long hours is also associated with the onset of cardiovascular disease, according to a global study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO), published in May in the journal Environment International<\/em>. These organizations estimate that, in 2016, 398,000 people died from stroke and 347,000 from heart disease as a result of working at least 55 hours a week. This represents a 29% increase since 2000.<\/p>\n The research concludes that working 55 hours or more per week increases the risk of stroke by 35%, and the chances of death from ischemic heart disease by 17%, compared to working a 35- to 40-hour week.<\/p>\n The degradation of working conditions is also reflected in the increased number of work-related accidents and diseases reported in Brazil in recent years. The number rose from 512,000 in 2006 to 639,000 cases in 2019, with some variations in the period (see chart<\/em>), according to information from the Occupational Health and Safety Observatory, an initiative of the Public Ministry of Labor and the International Labor Organization.<\/p>\n Furthermore, from 2012 to 2020, 21,460 workers suffered fatal accidents in Brazil, meaning six deaths for every 100,000 official jobs. In 2020, the year the COVID-19 pandemic began, serious cases reported to the Ministry of Health rose by 40%, mostly from coronavirus infections, motorcycle accidents, and severe injuries caused by machinery and equipment.<\/p>\n The sectors with the highest number of accident reports between 2012 and 2020 are hospitals, retail, construction, cargo transportation, and meat packing. The survey (available at smartlabbr.org\/sst) uses data compiled by the National Institute of Social Security (INSS) and only records accidents of those hired under the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT) regime.<\/p>\n The observatory has also made available a separate set of data from the Ministry of Health’s Notifiable Diseases Information System (SINAN), which indicates that accident reports have risen from 62,000 in 2007 to over 200,000 in 2019. \u201cSINAN covers a wider range of the working population,\u201d explains Hennington from CESTEH-FIOCRUZ. This is because it gathers data on care provided to injured workers in the Unified Health System (SUS), regardless of whether they have been officially hired or not. \u201cWe can assume, therefore, that accidents and illnesses in the unofficial economy have been reported more often, enabling effective strategies for prevention and health preservation.\u201d<\/p>\n There is, indeed, an increasing portion of the labor force that is not officially hired by companies. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the rate of unofficial workers in the country has reached 39.6%, with more than 34 million workers counted between December 2020 and February 2021. In the previous quarter, the rate was 39.1%.<\/p>\n The Occupational Health and Safety Observatory survey also shows that, since 2012, spending related to accidents has reached R$100 billion. The total amount spent on sick days due to depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders rose from 224,000 in 2019 to 289,000 in 2020. \u201cIt is clear, therefore, that workplace accidents have a financial impact on the market, on social security, and on the SUS,\u201d says Sayuri Tanaka Maeda, a professor at the USP School of Nursing. Maeda, alongside her master\u2019s student Cl\u00e9ria Silva Marinho, investigated the economic consequences of workplace accidents in Piracicaba (in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo), in collaboration with the city\u2019s Center for Employee Health Benchmarking (CEREST).<\/p>\n The study results are yet to be published, but Maeda says that the public and private health care systems spent R$2.3 million during the period they studied, from January to December 2014. In total, they reviewed 8,953 accidents treated in public hospitals and 1,159 accidents in private hospitals. \u201cWe observed that 75% of them were treated by the SUS, and a little over 90% of the cases involved officially employed workers.\u201d Most accidents involved general assistants, machine operators, drivers, welders, and construction workers.<\/p>\n Often, their invisibility contributes to making them ill, as portrayed in the minidocumentary Varredeiras <\/em>(Sweepers), released last March: the result of a 2020 master\u201ds research project by psychologist Bianca Gafanh\u00e3o Bobadilha, as part of the thematic project coordinated by Vilela at FSP-USP. Faced with cases of accidents and illnesses involving the women that sweep the streets of Piracicaba, Bobadilha established open lines of communication between the female employees and the managers of the urban cleaning company that employed them, in an effort to apply the Laborat\u00f3rio de Mudan\u00e7as method.<\/p>\n After meeting with a few of the sweepers, the researcher found that one of their challenges was how little recognition they got for their work. In addition to a lack of security, social prejudice was also listed as an important contributor to emotional distress and stress.<\/p>\n One of the solutions found, beyond negotiating better working conditions with the company, was to produce the documentary to show the sweepers\u2019 daily routine and raise awareness. \u201cThere is still some resistance from the company to listen to other issues raised by the workers, such as defining the mapped area they must cover each working day. However, the female employees are now heard more, and this can bring about considerable organizational change,\u201d says Vilela, who followed the work done in Piracicaba. The film, which involved the sweepers every step of the way, will be shown in schools and other interested institutions.<\/p>\n Projects<\/strong> Scientific article<\/strong>![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/078-081_acid-de-trabalho_304-1-desktop.png\")
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\n1.<\/strong> Innovation and transformation in professional risk prevention – ITAPAR (n\u00ba 19\/13525-0<\/a>); Grant Mechanism<\/strong> Thematic Project; Principal Investigator<\/strong> Rodolfo Andrade de Gouveia Vilela (USP); Investment<\/strong> R$632,977.56.
\n2.<\/strong> Accidents at work: from socio-technical analysis to the social construction of change (n\u00ba 12\/04721-1<\/a>); Grant Mechanism<\/strong> Thematic Project; Principal Investigator<\/strong> Rodolfo Andrade de Gouveia Vilela (USP); Investment<\/strong> R$976,019.61.
\n3.<\/strong> Economic consequences of workplace accidents: reality in the municipality of Piracicaba (n\u00ba 15\/20230-6<\/a>); Grant Mechanism<\/strong> Research Grant; Principal Investigator<\/strong> Sayuri Tanaka Maeda (USP); Investment<\/strong> R$21,545.<\/p>\n
\nPEGA, F. et al<\/em>. Global, regional, and national burdens of ischemic heart disease and stroke attributable to exposure to long working hours for 194 countries, 2000\u20132016: A systematic analysis from the WHO\/ILO Joint Estimates of the Work-related Burden of Disease and Injury<\/a>. Environment International<\/strong>. May 2021.<\/p>\n