COOPERATIVAS DE TRABALHO: FLEXIBILIZAÇÃO OU DEGRADAÇÃO DO TRABALHO?

Abstract

The 20th century's last decade has brought out the current trend of collapse into the organized labor market, in which an increasing heap of workers who were part of it before do not succeed to be displaced towards more stable jobs. In order to warrant its survival at least, all this labor pushed aside by the system has searched for some occupation across the informal sector, in lower quality jobs. Recently this excess labor has turned out to be urged onto organizing itself in work cooperatives, whose services have been demanded by companies interested in contracting their production out. The aim of this article is to discuss whether these cooperatives do represent an alternative project to the capitalist organization of labor, based on solidarity rather than on competition among workers, or they only comply with a strategic function within the current stage of capitalism, namely to serve as an intermediary between capital and labor.