Trabalho, Educação e Saúde - TES (Work, Education and Health) is an open access scientific journal, edited by the Joaquim Venâncio Polytechnic School of Health, from Oswaldo Cruz Foundation.

Weaving precariousness: home-based workers and the trade unions' strategies in São Paulo's clothing industry

  • Marcia de Paula Leite
  • Marcia de Paula Leite

    Professora livre-docente do DECISAE/Unicamp (Departamento de Ciências Sociais Aplicadas à Educação da Universidade Estadual de Campinas). Doutora em Sociologia pela USP.



Abstract

Using as reference São Paulo's clothing industry and in the context of the restructuring of production processes, this article discusses the recent changes in labour relations and labour conditions. For this purpose, the text looks closely at the division of labour among the companies within the productive chain and at the labour relations prevailing in its various levels, with special emphasis on home-based workers. The analysis reveals that, as the out-contracting process advances, the number of jobs decreases in the virtuous end of the productive chain - that is, in the leading companies, where labour is better qualified, earns higher salaries and has more stability; and increases in its precarious end - that is, where work conditions and labour relations are worse, and where there is a majority of unskilled, low-paid and less stable jobs, often without a proper work contract. The article also discusses how these work conditions, brought back to life in a new context, affect female workers much more than male ones, clearly showing the social exclusion of the more vulnerable sectors of the labour market.

Keywords

home-based workers,
gender and work,
precariousness of jobs

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