"Não delegar": o protagonismo da classe trabalhadora na defesa da saúde e da vida

Abstract

The field of Workers' Health (ST) emerged in 1970 in Brazil and one of its premises is the "non-delegation", which indicates a method to intervene in the health-work process, in which workers should not delegate health care to the employer or the State, being it a fundamental element to obtain effective achievements to eliminate harmful aspects of the health-work process. The objective of this thesis is to analyse the relevance today of the principle of non-delegation, which synthesizes the premise of the leading role of workers in the defence of health and life. As specific objectives, we propose to (1) develop in which way the workers' protagonism is presented as a key issue facing the health-disease process at work; (2) reflect on the strategies adopted in the 1970s and 1980s by the Metalworkers Union of ABC facing the health agenda and its applicability nowadays. To do so, we conducted (1) a theoretical study associating Marx's categories with the ST field and (2) we confronted this analysis empirically with the particular case of the metalworkers category in the ABC region in the decades of 1970-80, through a documental analysis of the resolutions of the congresses and press of the union about the worker's health agenda. We point out the union's orientation towards the bases and inside the factories as a factor that made health appear as a daily expression of the capital-labour contradictions. This process not only served to intervene in the work processes but also showed the health agenda as a form of mobilization, linking the struggle for higher wages with the struggle for working conditions.