Hello, in the previous classes, we discussed transformations in the World of Work and the effects they generate in society, contractual relations, and the characteristics of workers In this class, we will finalize this discussion by pointing out and summarizing some of these effects and the characteristics of illnesses observed in the contemporary world, which are different from the typical ones observed in workers in the 20th century. We observed in previous classes that these changes in the world of work have been producing inefficient, temporary, ineffective, and precarious contractual relationships, and working conditions, that are linked not only to the concrete and material conditions in which the work takes place but also to unstable work relations and a great increase in competitiveness that leads to the loss of collective relationships and bonds of solidarity. It seems that no one trusts anyone else because everyone has to get to that place of growth that they believe they are supposedly entitled to.
And that's why they dedicate themselves so much. But not everyone can get there because there are few job vacancies and opportunities, and there’s a sense that everyone is always competing against each other. This increases the demands on the workers and they feel like they have to work more and more.
There is the perception of an intensification of work leading to the feeling that one needs to work a lot, and since they cannot satisfy their desires, projects, and careers in just one company, there is a high staff turnover. It is difficult for people to remain for many years in one organization. It is easy to perceive that people change jobs frequently; the turnover is very high.
In addition, outsourced laborers, who are subjected to less qualified jobs with a higher turnover rate, have to build their careers over more precarious and temporary jobs with weaker employment relationships. However, more qualified workers also have a high turnover, which is sometimes promoted by the workers themselves to make a continuous career plan aiming to reach a peak of an ideal through several organizations. Along with that are the new forms of work contracts in which “Uberization” is the emblem with evident effects in the loss of rights to social protection guarantees.
I would like to indicate a video that talks about the issue of the relationship between this precariousness of contemporary work and some effects that are produced in social relations. It is a video with the character called Rita Von Hunty, from the “Tempero Drg” YouTube channel entitled “Home Office. ” Look for it on YouTube, and you will see a very interesting sketch in which Rita Von Hunty talks about the relationship between this kind of work and its social effects in terms of loss of rights.
It is an excellent video that summarizes well what we discussed in some of our previous classes. So, what effects does this produce for us? The first thing is the issue of the loss of the meaning of work.
If in the distant past, many workers had a very strong bond with what they did, because they understood their work, imagine in medieval times, a guy was going to make a musical instrument, he was a musical instrument production worker, and he understood that musical instrument, he knew what it was for, he knew every mechanism involved. With the industrialization process, workers lost some of the references to this more artisanal work, but even so, they still managed to have a bond with their peers, and feel that they belonged, via labor unions, work-collective communities, and the neighborhood in which they lived, there was that organization. To this day, you can find people who worked during the 1970s and 80s for companies like “Vale”, for example, that are very proud of having participated, even if through work of little structuring value, in that organization.
They felt valued by the company. People created bonds with their peers, neighborhoods, and companies. Nowadays, in a company like that, with all these transformations and precariousness, work has lost some of its meaning.
A career is something important, but what you do, and the importance of what you put in, is not something so important. It's no wonder that people today are looking for meaning beyond work, right? This is not necessarily a problem, but it seems like they are unable to achieve, in the process of working 8 to 10 hours per day, a fair symbolic and affective value for the amount of time dedicated.
So, there is a great conflict for many people between what they do, the time they spend doing it, and the value and the meaning of what is done. This is a big problem in the contemporary world. No wonder people have a lot of trouble finding meaning in life these days.
This human lack of meaning in life, and the lack of meaning in work go hand in hand. I don’t mean to say that this lack of meaning in life is exclusively due to the lack of meaning in work. But these are contemporary feelings, and the lack of meaning in work also helps us understand why these feelings are so strong in the modern world.
There is also another process, which is the increase in mental suffering. People today can't seem to hold on. There is an intensification, for example, in the manifestation of mental disorders, to the point that the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), which is a globally used diagnostic tool run by the WHO, in its 2022 edition, ICD-11, included the term “burnout”, which refers to a disease process related to exhaustion from work.
You work so much, that you lose your energy. This is a characteristic that affects millions of people worldwide and is an effect of this intensification of work. People are subjected to very difficult conditions that demand so much from them that their energy is drained.
But this does not lessen physical suffering. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders are also intensified. Be it from sitting for long periods, or by the continuous typing to which we are subjected.
There are various reasons, like remaining in these positions without being able to get up and have some water or coffee. All of this increases the subjection of the body to precarious and painful conditions that add to mental disorders and pressures people are under in their daily work. So, the increase in mental illness did not necessarily decrease physical problems, there isn’t an exchange of one for the other.
We observe the increase of mental illness processes without the reduction of repetitive strain injuries (RSI) for example, even though there have been changes in the production processes. There is also the issue of mortality linked to heart disease, which can be linked to stress, for example. In some countries, the idea of sudden death linked to work is reported as something very recurrent.
So, it is important to observe how stress contributes to the increase in mortality, and in some illness processes, it is related to work. It's not just the world of work that enhances the processes of social stress, other social factors also intensify stress; traffic, violence, etc. But the issue of work is one of the elements of this very problematic equation to which we are subjected.
Thus, as contemporariness is the keynote and objective of this course, work transformation processes have culminated in intense changes that have produced new personality characteristics and new ways of relating to the world of production. This puts us in previously unthinkable conditions, and as a consequence, we perceive the emergence of Mental Health issues as a problem. Today, there is a lot of news about Mental Health.
Unfortunately, not everyone understands its relationship with work. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the relationship between the effects of the pandemic and mental processes. However, mental illness processes have been observed long before the pandemic.
The pandemic helped intensify these processes, but what we are trying to show in our classes is that they are also related to the world of work. Therefore, it is important to understand that these illness processes speak not just of different and changing forms of work but of different and changing personal characteristics, the contractual forms that are demanded by this work, and the diverse social conditions created and that need to be rearranged because of this work as well. So, there is a complex dynamic that cannot be understood unless we understand the complex relationship between life in society, work and the process of becoming ill, and the processes of subjectification.
If we are subjected to difficult conditions, we may ask ourselves “And now, what can we do? ” In the next class, we will have the opportunity to discuss possible ways of facing these social transformations that we are undergoing. We hope you've enjoyed the lessons so far, and I thank you for sticking around and keeping the course going.
I wish us all a good course, thank you.
