O trabalho na economia solidária: estudo de caso sobre a rotatividade em uma associação de reciclagem

Abstract

The present work analyzes the rotation of the members of COMARP, a Solidarity Economy Enterprise (SEE) of the recycling sector located in Belo Horizonte. A case study is developped based on ergonomic comments and semi-structured interviews, focusing factors of permanence and of disengagement of the members. The study reveals that there is a high rotation, related to the precariousness and fragility of this enterprise. This can be caused by several factors, but specially by its unprivileged position in the recycling productive chain. The rotation indices obtained are about 38% in 2006; 53% in 2007; 47% in 2008 and 29% in 2009. The following factors for the permanence in the enterprise were pointed out as most relevant: the unemployment, need of income and lack of alternatives; the improvement of the working conditions made possible by the associative work; the proximity to the work place; the possibility of achieving better incomes due to the activity of recycling; the payment of the INSS tax (the brazilian public previdence system); the attachment to this kind of work, perceived as being more autonomous having less pressures or controls and as having a pleasant environment marked by affective and solidarity relations; to be a honest work; to be a work that contributes for the environment preservation, conferring to the workers a social recognition for their profession. The main factors that contribute to disengagement are decisively the following: low income; the constant exposition to the sun; the work on Saturdays; the contact with garbage, which is perceived as unpleasant and degrading; the great physical effort required and the arduousness of this work; the need of women to interrupt the work because of maternity, aggravated by the scarcity of public day-care centers; the lack of labor rights; the rules, the centralization of the decisions in the hands of the president and the low participation of the associates in the management of the enterprise, as much as the conflicts that happen therefrom; and, finally, the product-based income and the variable remuneration that make it difficult to build a long time life project.