Carlos Eduardo Carrusca Vieira, Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Psychology, Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC Minas), Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
The International Labor Organization (ILO), together with recent legislative developments in Brazil – particularly the updated Regulatory Standard 1 in 2024 – has reinforced the critical need to address elevated levels of stress, anxiety, and depression within professional environments.
In a scenario where discussions about preventing psychosocial risks have become mandatory for organizations, a critical analysis raises questions about whether their interventions genuinely safeguard employee health or merely conceal workplace issues.
The article Work-related psychosocial risk factors: a contemporary analysis, published in the Brazilian Journal of Occupational Health/Revista Brasileira de Saúde Ocupacional (RBSO), asserts that managerialist and neoliberal frameworks may present challenges, particularly when they shift responsibility onto workers by advocating for individualized solutions.
The article is authored by Carlos Eduardo Carrusca Vieira, a professor at PUC Minas, and Nayara Santos, a master’s student in Psychology (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, PUC Minas), adopts a theoretical approach that engages with Marxist critiques of capitalist production as well as analyses of neoliberal management practices. The authors’ study suggests that policies, instruments, and measures designed to safeguard workers’ health – developed within frameworks of capitalist accumulation and neoliberal governmentality – often serve as interventions that obscure the impact of workplace conditions on health, rather than directly addressing or transforming these situations. These approaches tend to place undue emphasis on individual actions and, consequently, increase demands on employees.
The research highlights a concerning trend: blaming individuals for their own suffering. Numerous psychosocial risk management strategies are offered to employees as solutions; however, the study categorizes these approaches as “cosmetic” psychosocial risk management. This assessment is based on the observation that, rather than improving workplace conditions, such methods focus on encouraging workers to adapt to environments that are detrimental to their well-being.
Thus, neoliberal capitalist management can remain focused on its primary focus: capital profitability. The authors note that this managerial approach, when extended to psychosocial risk management, overlooks the structural antagonism between capital and labor. As a result, it limits critical discussion and undermines collective efforts aimed at improving and transforming workplace conditions.
The authors assert that occupational health encompasses more than merely the absence of disease; it involves empowering workers to engage proactively in analyzing and transforming their work environments. The article concludes that effectively addressing psychosocial risks requires explicit consideration of inherent contradictions within the capitalist mode of production and broader power dynamics, including factors such as racism, sexism, and intersectional violence. The study contends that, although mitigation policies are necessary, ultimately overcoming these risks demands a fundamental reform of the capitalist economic structure.
The International Labor Organization (ILO), together with recent legislative developments in Brazil – particularly the updated Regulatory Standard 1 in 2024 – has reinforced the critical need to address elevated levels of stress, anxiety, and depression within professional environments.
Recent Comments