Entre o medo do trabalho e o medo de não trabalhar: eletricitários e privatização

Abstract

This article analyses how transformations introduced to organize and accomplish work in the electrical sector, within the privatization context of the 90s, affected workers psychologically, the strategies developed by them to avoid, administrate and live with psychological distress, as well as the challenges and organizable difficulties faced by the labor union. The confronta tive challenges were circumscribed to the psychodynamic and individual scope, and the workers lacked guidance and institutionalized settings to debate and conduct solutions to problems in front of organizational instability and performance changes of administration in the conveyance of the negotiating processes. The need to reconsider health and safety policies in this work sector is emphasized given the importance of bio-psychosocial integrity to securely accomplish these activities.