OVEREXPLORATION OF LABOR FORCE IN CELLULOSE AGROINDUSTRIES IN TRÊS LAGOAS/MS: A LOOK AT WORKPLACE RISKS AND ACCIDENTS AT WORK

Abstract

The present work consists of an effort to understand some of the particularities of labor relations expressed in the local reality of Três Lagoas/MS from the expansion of cellulose production, in which companies Eldorado Brasil and Suzano are the representatives of capitalist production in this fraction of the territory. The argument assumed in this paper presupposes that the process of overexploitation of labor force through the combination of mechanisms of extraction of absolute surplus value (prolonging the duration of the working day), relative (incorporation of the technological apparatus) and accentuated wear of labor force municipality from the appropriation of the consumption fund takes place in the cellulose agroindustries with the purpose of increasing the rates of surplus value extracted from the work process. In order to understand the singularities of the work process in the cellulose agroindustries, interviews were conducted with five workers directly or indirectly linked (in the case of outsourced workers) to the companies studied. A qualitative approach was adopted as a methodological procedure, through which the semi-structured interview was the data collection technique adopted and, as an analytical tool, content analysis was assumed. The analysis of the primary data, associated with the secondary data and other information presented, revealed the physical and/or mental exhaustion, as well as the risks and accidents at work that fall on the working class. This points to the understanding that the agroindustrial production of cellulose in this municipality is based on the overexploitation of labor force as a structural condition, with the physical/psychological destruction and deaths of workers being the maximum expression of this process.