The fight against the precariousness of the work of Agents to Combat Endemic Diseases (ACE) in the state of Rio de Janeiro (1989–2014)

This dissertation analyzes the forms of struggle and organization of the Endemic Combat Agents of the State of Rio de Janeiro in the face of the situation of deconstruction of their employment ties in the process of precarious work. It seeks to understand how they achieved stability in the federal public service, at a time when, in Brazil, faster forms of municipalization and regionalization of workers were unleashed through temporary contracts, during the period from 1989 to 2014. It highlights the context of the epidemic of dengue that hit the state in 1986 and had an alarming advance from 1990/91, reaching 105 thousand cases (many of hemorrhagic fever). The study builds a reflection on the labor relations of ACEs who had indecent and cyclical work contracts renewable every six months. It reconstructs the struggle process of the category from 1989 to 1999, when 5,742 ACEs were summarily dismissed by the Minister of Health José Serra in the neoliberal government of FHC. After demonstrations, demonstrations, public events in Cinelândia and legal actions, they were reinstated in 2002 with a temporary employment relationship with Funasa. Years later, with more struggles and party political articulations, they acquired the CLT bond as a public employee at Funasa, through Law 11.350/2006 and later on achieved the transformation to statutory employees linked to the Ministry of Health. When investigating the transformations that occurred in the work process of the ACEs, the hypothesis emerged that from that moment on, their struggles and actions constituted a resistance movement in the historical formation of Brazilian public health. The record of this historical process shows that the struggle of these workers formed a differentiated, dynamic and participatory resistance movement in the history of public health. It is concluded that it was an extraordinary movement and that, from the moment that the class became aware that it was suffering exploitation at work, it began to claim its rights with various mechanisms of struggle. Strategies and articulations were identified through marches, demonstrations in Central do Brasil, closures of avenues in Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, strikes, slowdowns, seminars, assemblies in Cinelândia and the use of labor legislation in favor of the category. This movement of struggle and unification constituted a historic movement, whose aspects of organization and spontaneity ensured breaking the subordination to capital, at certain times, and ensuring a successful end.