UBERIZAÇÃO LABORAL NO BRASIL: A PLATAFORMIZAÇÃO DO TRABALHO COMO UMA FORMA DE INTENSIFICAÇÃO DA SUPEREXPLORAÇÃO DO TRABALHO NO CONTEXTO DAS ECONOMIAS DEPENDENTES

Abstract

Uberization and platformization, terms considered synonymous in this work because they lead to similar consequences, are one of the ways in which work in the 20th century became increasingly precarious. This precariousness can be represented by phenomena such as a gradual loss of rights, longer working hours, falling wages, and a rise in the number of workplace accidents. To create a consensus of acceptance in the face of this reality of the weakening working class, the discourse of entrepreneurship emerged, aiming to internalize the behaviors desired by capital on the part of workers and a discourse legitimizing these conditions. However, it should be emphasized that Brazil is a dependent economy, and therefore, deprived of rights and overexploited labor is the current reality. Based on the assumptions of Marx's critique of political economy and Marxist Dependency Theory, this work aims to understand the phenomenon of the platformization of labor in the Brazilian context. The specific objectives are to understand whether the phenomenon of platformization of labor can be considered a means of intensifying the superexploitation of the workforce, to examine the working conditions of the interviewed platform workers in relation to the normal working class conditions in Brazil, particularly in Campo Grande, and to verify the adequacy and validity of the categories of Marxist Dependency Theory in the context of the platformization of labor. To this end, interviews are conducted with app delivery workers in the food sector in several Brazilian capitals to obtain the necessary data to support the proposed investigation. To conduct this research, which relies on the dialectical method of grasping concrete reality, semi-structured interviews were conducted with motorcycle food delivery drivers in the city of Campo Grande. The main findings are that app workers are male, young, of mixed race, with low levels of education, and receive an average net salary of just over the minimum wage. Therefore, the Uber workers participating in the study are in a more precarious situation than the average worker in Campo Grande: despite their working hours being similar in length, their net income is well below average and there is no social protection or any type of income guarantee.