Representações sociais de trabalhadores de um hospital de ensino sobre as repercussões dos arranjos empregatícios utilizados pela EBSERH nas relações de trabalho e no cumprimento da missão do hospital

Abstract

The upheavals imposed by the restructuring of contemporary capitalism have affected the way people think about social policy and the labor market in recent decades. The idea of health as a universal right and a State duty manifests itself in Brazil's Unified Health System (abbreviated SUS - Sistema Unico de Saude). This system, however, has been hampered by political project disputes and insufficient funding, resulting in different health management models. The creation of the Brazilian Company of Hospital Services (EBSERH) was a government response to the issues faced by University Hospitals (UH). This organization’s implementation introduced a new labor regime to the old ones, resulting in a complicated and diverse employment arrangement. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the social representations of nursing workers at the University Hospital of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (HU-UFJF) about the consequences of the employment arrangements used by EBSERH in labor relations and in fulfilling the hospital's mission; and to comprehend how nursing workers build relationships with each other and with the HU-UFJF institution in a scenario of diverse contractual work arrangements. The Theory of Social Representations provides the theoretical foundation for this qualitative study. The study included sixteen EBSERH nurses whose employment relationships are governed by the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and organized according to Bardin's Thematic Analysis. Three themes emerged from the discourse analysis: the meaning of work in a teaching hospital; the representation of contractual work arrangements; temporary contracts; and the response to COVID-19 at HUUFJF. The extended social representations demonstrate that the HU-UFJF promotes itself as a distinct setting for professional growth. Positive aspects of working at the HU-UFJF include remuneration and the availability of material and human resources. The difficulties encountered in daily work were distinguishing between the regimes of the CLT from EBSERH and the Single Legal System (RJU); communication issues; trouble standardizing work processes; and disability in the HU-UFJF teaching pillar. Contractual labor arrangement representations illustrate characteristics of the fragmentation and complexity of the researched working class's current condition. The more complex the administration of this environment gets as the number of components of employment arrangements increases, making it difficult to standardize processes and work routines while also fomenting conflicts between workers. The outcomes of this study may benefit the managers and employees at the specified institution. Understanding components of daily labor is critical for generating methods to reduce the negative concerns that currently exist in health settings such as University Hospitals.