Metamorfoses do trabalho doméstico remunerado no contexto de mundialização do capital - o caso brasileiro

Abstract

The Brazilian National Congress approved a Constitutional Amendment (PEC) in 2013 that amended the Constitution of 1988 thus extending the coverage of the Consolidated Labour Laws (CLT) to the last professional category that had remained outside of this protective legal framework since its creation in 1943. Since the enactment of Complementary Law 150/2015, known as the "Domestic Workers´ PEC", all Brazilian workers have the same set of fundamental labour rights. Thus, some 7 million Brazilian workers achieved their greatest desire; that all workers engaged in paid domestic work throughout the twentieth and the beginning of twenty-first centuries be included under labour law. It remains to be seen why it took so long to make a decision as important and comprehensive as this. The CLT itself is more than 70 years old. The changes that took place during the twentieth century in relation to paid domestic work that culminated in this outcome are the object of this thesis. Progressive (although long-delayed)changes to labour are analysed in the global context of a resumption of conservatism which was amplified following the world economic crisis of 2008. In this context, there has been a coming-together of interests that accumulated over decades of domestic workers' struggles and which counted on the support of anti-racist and feminist social movements. Inclusion of domestic workers under labour law occurred during a period of economic growth in Brazil, contrary to what was occurring globally. A bibliography of the legislation on the subject has been constructed based on the Ordinances of the Crown (Portuguese), extending to the Portuguese colonies, passing through Codes of Municipal Ordinancesand other specific laws for domestic workers. The genealogical recovery of this profession in Brazil led to an examination of both slave labour and to the myth of the inability of women to occupy men's roles in the capitalist labour market. Women have performed unpaid domestic work for centuries. Currently, this profession is occupied almost entirely by women, in most cases black women. Marxist Dependency Theory was used to understand the heritage of Brazilian colonization and the obstacles that keep the country in a subordinate position regarding international socioeconomic development. Through the use of theoretical categories including super exploitation and sub imperialism, it was possible to more clearly identify the course of and the social and institutional arrangements necessary to overcome, in some way, the archaic and persistent pattern of contemporary Brazil labour relations. The research also sought to understand the role of the Decent Work Agenda (1999) and ILO Convention 189/2011 as international strategic tools for the approval of the Domestic Workers PEC. Many of the international demands that led to the creation of the convention involve the approximately 67.1 million domestic workers throughout the world. The vast majority of these workers are women. Approximately 11.5 million of these workers are immigrants, usually without secure documents to live and work in their country of residence.