Expansion of teleworking during the pandemic: a new face of labor precariousness?

Abstract

This article analyzes the consequences of teleworking expansion during the covid-19 pandemic, the precariousness related to the adoption of this labour modality, and the resistance alternatives for the working class in this new reality. With this aim, the article uses the dialectic method, and the bibliographical research technique. Initially, the concept of teleworking is introduced and the way that the Brazilian legislation regulates the subject is analyzed. Teleworking consists of work done somewhere other than the employer's facilities and that uses information and communication Technologies (Article 75-B of the CLT). In a subsequent moment, it analyzes the context in which the expansion of telework is inserted. The introduction of this work modality in the Brazilian legal framework started in 2016 amidst a neoliberal shift. Thereafter, the article scrutinizes the main aspects of precariousness attached to remote work. For example the rules about working hours, the consequences of working from home in teleworkers’ mental health, and its repercussions in the development of solidarity relations between employees. After the analysis, it was discovered that the introduction of teleworking caused an increase of work exploitation, which has as consequence the emergence of physical and psychological diseases, the reduction of workers’average salary and the disincentive of their collective organization. It was concluded that there is an urgent necessity of creating laws that regulate teleworking in a more protective way, aiming, mostly, at promoting the limitation of working hours to constitutional standards, and creating mechanisms to guarantee the right of disconnecting to the working class.