A vida na estrada sob a lógica do capital: precarização das relações de trabalho e impactos na saúde dos caminhoneiros no Brasil

Abstract

This Undergraduate Thesis analyzes the working conditions of truck drivers in Brazil and their impacts on workers’ health, within the context of transformations in contemporary capitalism, marked by the productive restructuring of capital, flexible accumulation, and the advance of neoliberal policies, especially since the 1990s. The research is based on the recognition of the centrality of road freight transport in the Brazilian economy and the historically precarious condition of this professional category. Grounded in the historical-dialectical materialist method, the study has a theoretical-analytical character and uses bibliographic review and documentary analysis as methodological procedures, engaging with authors from the Marxist tradition and critical Social Work, such as Marx, Antunes, Galeano, Kapron, and Silva, as well as institutional data from the National Confederation of Transport and the SmartLab Observatory. The results indicate that the fragmentation of labor relations, the intensification of working hours, contractual instability, and the weakening of social protection policies produce significant impacts on the physical and mental health of truck drivers, revealing socially determined processes of illness. It is concluded that these conditions do not result from individual factors, but from a dependent capitalist development model that subordinates work and life to the demands of capital accumulation and circulation, reaffirming the relevance of this topic for Social Work and for the critical analysis of the social question.