Condições de vida, trabalho e desenvolvimento humano no "comércio mais barato da Bahia"

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the relationship between the living conditions, working conditions and human development of commercial workers in Santo Antônio de Jesus (Bahia) in 2022. Its theoretical framework is based on contributions from the tradition of Marxist thought, especially the ontological categories elaborated by Marx and Lukács in their discussion of Social Being. The research was carried out in two stages, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. The first stage (Study 1) consisted of a cross-sectional analytical study with a quantitative approach. A total of 464 workers took part, completing a sociodemographic questionnaire that covered demographic information, income, housing conditions, health conditions, urban mobility, working hours, reproductive work, debt and unionization. Bivariate statistical analyses were performed and effect sizes were calculated. The results show that the working class employed in commerce in Santo Antônio de Jesus is mostly black, female, low-income, in debt, who have studied up to secondary school and do not have any union support. The data revealed significant gender and racial differences in terms of education, income and reproductive work. In the second stage (Study 2), a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out, in which 20 workers who were part of Study 1 took part in a semi-structured interview. The data was analyzed using the Thematic Analysis method, which led to three Thematic Units: 1) Time and Work (comprising the following sub-themes: a) Working Hours, b) Flexible Work, c) Lack of Free Time, d) Reproductive Work); 2) Relationships at Work (sub-themes: (a) Reification, (b) Sectoral Difference, (c) Employer Micropolitics and Weakness in Union Protection); and 3) Low Income and Debt (sub-themes: (a) Wage Inadequacy, (b) Material and Immaterial Precariousness, (c) Debt). The results revealed that the life/work scenario in SAJ's commerce reproduces, in its specificity, structural characteristics of the capitalist mode of production that limit the potential for human development. These constraints are expressed in the systematic consumption of life time, in the material precariousness caused by the overexploitation of the workforce, in the intensifying of precariousness thanks to the racialization of work, trade union fragility and patriarchal restrictions.