O preço do óleo: terceirização, precarização e vivência do tempo no trabalho offshore

Abstract

The research presented here was carried out with the aim of understanding how contemporary changes in production relations, especially outsourcing, have been reconfiguring precariousness and how this is materialized in working and living conditions and in the forms of collective organization of workers in the drilling sector of the Petrobras from Macaé. A semi-structured interview was carried out with 15 workers: 11 outsourced and 4 outsourced. Permanent workers and outsourced workers in the Petrobras drilling sector experience in their daily work relationships typical of this productive restructuring: work intensification, insecurity because it is dangerous work, precarious work conditions and relationships. However, outsourced workers experience these transformations much more intensely than directly hired workers, as they still deal with the insecurity of the bond. Our thesis is that outsourcing at Petrobras is a way of inserting the company into the international division of labor, in the new pattern of competition brought about by financialization, as well as benefiting national and international financial groups. This insertion leads to the need to “modernize” production, to enhance exploration and accumulation, with outsourcing as the main tool. This and other “modern” management mechanisms are only possible to be implemented by the loss of workers' mobilization capacity, achieved by the generalized insecurity and precariousness. It is an outstanding strategy for the recomposition of the profit rate and the insertion of Petrobras in the international division of labor and in the new standard of competition brought about by financialization.