“Eu troquei a experiência profissional pela minha saúde”: análise dos impactos do trabalho precário na saúde mental dos advogados inseridos nos escritórios de massa

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the working conditions of law firms specialized in mass litigation and its possible relation with the development of mental disorders by lawyers. For this purpose, it is based on the hypothesis that the labor dynamics established in the offices of mass litigation is an expression of the labor social precariousness phenomenon, that affects the entire working class in Brazil, bringing together a set of indicators of precariousness that, in an integrated manner, contribute to the lawyers’ illness. We take as theoretical starting points the Marxian contribution of the centrality of work in the self-constitution of men and women and the contradiction assumed by labor activity in the specifically capitalist mode of social reproduction of life, by metamorphosing into a space of estrangement and alienation. We join the SM&T research field approach that recognizes the potential of work to contribute directly to the health and disease processes of workers and to studies that associate the labor social precariousness to the advancement of mental illness with a labor nexus, as never seen before in the history of capitalism. In order to carry out the empirical research, we chose to adopt the semi-structured interview method as a way to access the professionals’ work experiences and their most sensitive perceptions about the impact of work on mass advocacy on their life trajectory and on their health. The theoretical accumulation provided by the literature review and its articulation with the lawyers’ narratives allowed us to conclude that the work carried out in legal firms of the mass segment is established in the horizon of young professionals as an activity marked by extreme precariousness. Its effects spread inside and outside the work environment as they compromise time for rest, leisure and family. Thus, the practices perpetrated by the labor organization object of analysis confirm the hypothesis initially raised, revealing the close relationship between precariousness and the emergence of mental disorders. In addition, social markers of gender and race emerged in the interviews as elements that deepen illness with a labor nexus in mass offices.