Proceedings 19th Triennial Congress of the IEA, Melbourne 9-14 August 2015
The work of outsourced cleaning agents in a public university
a
b
Sandra F. Bezerra Gemma , Marta Fuentes-Rojas , Maurílio José Soares BarbosaC
Ergonomics and Occupational Health, School of Applied Sciences – University of Campinas (UNICAMP),
b
Limeira, São Paulo, BRAZIL; Psychology and Health education, School of Applied Sciences– University of
Campinas (UNICAMP), Limeira, São Paulo, BRAZIL; C Master’s student – University of Campinas
(UNICAMP), Campinas, São Paulo, BRAZIL
a
1. Introduction:
The process of globalization and the restructuring of production brought changes in the economy, forms
of production and organization of work, causing unfavorable situations for workers (Toni, 2007).
Outsourcing has emerged as a way of organizing work to decrease labor costs and responsibilities.
Companies hire other service companies to perform functions that are not directly related to their main
activity. To Araújo et al. (2007), the use of this type of service leads to the worsening of working conditions
and increased informality of the market. The Third Sector in Brazil absorbs large amount of people,
becoming an alternative occupation for workers who cannot find employment in other sectors of the
economy, reinforcing the trend of outsourcing (Carrion, 1997).
In the other hand, the presence of women in the labor market has increased significantly, but did not
follow the decrease of professional inequalities between men and women (Abramo and Armij, 1997).
The cleaning job, even when exercised away from the home environment, is often performed by women,
for historical and cultural issues related to the sexual division of labor. There is a social women subordination,
as evidenced in their own labor relations, wages and in the persistence of occupational segregation. In
several Latin American cities, from the total female labor force, 30% are domestic workers. There is also a
large concentration of female employment in the Third Sector, especially in activities that are associated with
women in the level of symbolic representations, such as education, health care and social assistance
(Souza-Lobo, 2011).
Therefore, this study aims to analyze the activity of work and determine the Work Ability Index® of
outsourced cleaning agents who provide services at a public university in Limeira, São Paulo - Brazil.
2. Method:
Activity Analysis through the methodology of the Collective Work Analysis (CWA), and data
collection through the use of two questionnaires.
Questionnaire 1 refers to social-demographic, occupational and lifestyle data. Questionnaire 2
relates to Work Ability Index® (WAI), an instrument that was developed at FIOH - Finnish Institute of
Occupational Health (Tuomi et al., 2005). This index depicts the physical and mental capacity to work and
may subsidize projects for improvement of working conditions, by means of health promotion activities.
The Collective Work Analysis (CWA) is a methodology that favors the approach of the feelings that
the work provokes and mobilizes thus explaining aspects of pleasure and pain at work (Ferreira, 1993).
3. Results and discussion:
The survey was conducted with 22 cleaning agents, from which 21 were women, most of them
almost new to the institution (between 1 week and 3 years). The survey was conducted with 22 cleaners, 21
women, most with little time on the job (between 1 week and 3 years).
Other surveys with cleaning agents also show that the overwhelming majority are female (Andrade
and Monteiro, 2007; Chillida and Cocco, 2004; Martarello and Benatti, 2009; Silva et al, 2010; Sznelwar et al,
2004) and that those women assume cleaning duties very similar to domestic work, in non-residential
environments. However this paid work suffers social determinants that put it closer to the domestic category
than to the paid employees in general.
The WAI calculation revealed that work capacity was low for 1 person, moderate for 5, good for 9
and great for 7 of them. Considering the short time of work this WAI is worrisome, because if no action is
1 Proceedings 19th Triennial Congress of the IEA, Melbourne 9-14 August 2015
taken on the working conditions, women who already present low and moderate capacity may suffer greater
impairment in a few years.
On the CWA the various aspects of "working" in this activity were highlighted, like the issue of lack of
appreciation and recognition by the management, students and professors of the institution or the issue of
the additional effort needed to clean the places where there is inappropriate use of facilities, especially toilets
and classrooms.
Particular issues of outsourcing and labor considered feminine were evidenced. Related to it: poor
working conditions, low wages, less stability and the double shift also appeared. The damage experienced in
the execution of activities was directly related to factors such as physical and mental load linked to the work
and the environment, insufficient or inadequate tools as well as the poor resources available to workers.
Symptoms such as muscle aches were reported, especially in the spine and lower limbs. This work
involves risks which can bring up consequences such as retirement, dismissal for disability or even
premature death. One can debate the extent to which outsourcing, considered a strategy to increase or
maintain the competitiveness of the organizations, promotes the precarious conditions and labor relations, as
it weakens the bonds of solidarity among workers (effective and outsourced) and contributes to the fragility of
the workers’ representations and union practices.
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