Public policies for the promotion of decent work in Brazil: dialogues with Amartya Sen

Abstract

The United Nations' eighth sustainable development objective foresees the need to "promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all". This goal is consistent with the guidelines of the International Labor Organization's policies and programs to ensure the exercise of employment in conditions that respect human rights, individual freedoms and equality. Given this context, and reinforced by explicit provisions in the Constitution of the Federative Republic of 1988 that guide in the same direction, Brazil has developed public policies and important legislative changes related to the world of work. Over the last twenty years, more than fifty-five thousand Brazilian workers have been rescued from conditions analogous to slavery, according to data from the Secretariat of Labour Inspection. According to data from the Ministry of Labor, although expressly prohibited by law, child labor still affects 2.7 million Brazilian children. The country is the fourth in the world with the highest incidence of occupational accidents, according to data from the Ministry of Labor. The purpose of this article is to analyze the extent to which state performance has contributed to the effectiveness of decent work, as well as how the impacts brought about by the labor reform approved in the Brazilian National Congress in 2017 may interfere in the promotion of the exercise of work activity so that does not violate fundamental rights and guarantees to life, equality, security and freedom. The overcoming of problems related to decent work is central to the analysis of development, which, according to Amartya Sen, consists in removing limitations to the choices and opportunities for rational citizen action. In this way, the present article analyzes the effects of the public policies of valorization of decent work in the expansion of the freedom of the individuals, considered, simultaneously, like end of the development and like its main means. Some freedoms, including decent work, play an instrumental role in promoting the freedoms of other species and stimulate targeted initiatives to overcome deprivation. Therefore, analyzing the extent to which the Brazilian State has achieved success in promoting decent work becomes an extremely important task.