Os dois circuitos da economia urbana e a precarização do trabalho no subcentro do bairro do Jacintinho em Maceió – AL

Abstract

The precariousness of work is one of the pillars of survival of the capitalist mode of production. With each new restructuring of this economic system, the mechanisms of labor exploitation are improved, resulting in flexibility, outsourcing, underemployment, temporary work and scrapping, as well as direct attacks on legislation that aims to protect labor. This attack on the dignity of the worker is based on the dictates of a neoliberalism that has called into question the sovereignty of countries like Brazil. One of the results of this action materializes in the expanding structural unemployment throughout the national territory, above all, in the expansion of the lower circuit of the urban economy of Brazilian cities. Based on this perspective, we sought to analyze the process of precarious work of stallholders and delivery men who work in the subcenter of the Jacintinho neighborhood, located in Maceió - AL. Although these activities are antagonistic, they directly or indirectly suffer the effects of movements that are aimed at making labor rights more flexible; this fact can be proven in the recent Brazilian Labor Reform supported by Law 13,429 of 2017. Delivery people linked to digital platforms that operate in the subcenter of the Jacintinho neighborhood face the results of this process of scrapping Brazilian labor, as they do not have any guaranteed labor rights by the Consolidation of Labor Laws – CLT, although they perform activities very similar or identical to the work models protected by this law. Platform capitalism not only printed new work mechanisms, but also circumvented legal systems with the idea of providing occupations for the great mass of the unemployed, creating an intense process of exploitation and alienation of these workers. In relation to the stallholders who work in the mentioned subcenter, they go through a significant process of precariousness of their work that materializes from the occupation and use of the territory to the movement of persecutions and constant threats by public agencies, in this way, delegitimizing not only the use of the territory, but also the importance of this activity for the development of the popular economy that develops in the neighborhood. The methodology used was based on bibliographic surveys, thus seeking a deeper understanding of the subject of study, ranging from classic to current works; specific field work in the Jacintinho neighborhood subcenter, which made it possible to recognize the place, as well as the agents who work there; application of questionnaires and interviews to couriers and marketers; the analytical method used was historical-dialectical materialism.