Precarização da organização do trabalho: vivências de prazer e sofrimento no cultivo do fumo

Abstract

Some factors contribute significantly to the deterioration of the organization of work in tobacco farming: exploitation of the tobacco farmers by the tobacco industry; the lack of social care by the government; the intensification of the work in addition to the logic of accumulation of capital, which interferes in the health of these professionals; diminish tobacco farming and consumption policies throughout national territory. In order to resist against these setbacks, tobacco farmers try to survive in such unfavourable economical scenery. The objective of this research was to get to know the perception of these professionals towards the results of the organization of work over the way they experience pleasure and suffering in work. Fifteen tobacco farmers, men and women who live in Don Feliciano/RS, national reference in tobacco farming, participated in this study. The research was carried out according to the descriptive and exploratory method with a qualitative perspective. The instrument of research was focus groups. In the meetings it was used a list of leading questions elaborated in accordance to the themes in the psychodynamics of work. For the interpretative analysis, it was used Bardin’s model with a priori and a posteriori categories (BARDIN), being the last used to complement the contents that emerged from the groups. This dissertation, divided into two empirical articles, presents and debates the results of this research. The first section exhibits the article “Tobacco growers warn: the cause to your suffering is the Man, not the tobacco”. Its main finding is the suffering of tobacco growers which is caused by an alienating organization of work and fear of massive unemployment threats, which make them consider other ways of making money such as rural diversification that, for them, is not worthwhile. The tobacco farmers portray the situation that the Man puts them into. He is represented, according to them, by the tobacco industry, the Estate, and the tobacco farmers themselves who do nothing to prevent social mistreat that undermines this professional category. In the second section, it is presented the article “Both tobacco smokers and tobacco farmers fall ill”. It points out that displeasure and suffering are experienced by tobacco farmers daily, but little is mentioned about pleasure and rare moments of leisure in work. Both suffering and falling ill happen due to bad work conditions, caused by its intensification. However, it is common to find tobacco farmers taking blame for their lack of health, admitting overworking and not taking right precautions. Their understanding of the consequences of the conditions they are is limited. These farmers do not understand that the “errors” and “exaggerations” that they admit making are the consequences of an alienating organization of work. The objectives of this investigation are: to highlight the importance of the participation of tobacco farmers in forums to debate over the rural diversification proposal; elucidate the relation of domination between tobacco industries and farmers; contextualise the urgency for interventions of the Estate in order to warrant health and pension to farmers; allow mental health professionals to get to know tobacco farmers’ perspective in terms of suffering and falling ill, as well as helping them to understand that the conditions of these farmers may not be just summed up to the point of just describing symptoms or diagnosis, but be prevented, problematised and considered as a social issue that needs the interlocution of various areas of knowledge.