WORKER’S LABOR AND HEALTH IN RURAL SETTLEMENTS

Abstract

Can cooperate and self manageable work contribute to solve problems related to unemployment, misery and social rootlessness which affect workers’ health and bio-psychosocial integrity? By studying rural settlements organized according to the self managed cooperation principles, I try to understand the changes which took place in rural workers’ work and life conditions. Not only does life condition
refers to the possibility of acceding to individual and/or collective consumption goods, but, above all, to the control degree workers might have on social and political relations dealing with work organization, to the decision making power and self management. Difficulties exist related to both the lack of adequate conditions (credit, technology and technical support), to organize production and trade, to the lack of infra-structure (housing, electricity, water, roads, education and health) to make societary life viable, and to the difficulty to overcome the salary-based culture characterized by submission, dependence and work load naturalization as well as health worsening. However, despite the lack of resources and the insufficiency of public policies, workers felt to be less vulnerable because they viewed the possibility to learn new ways of health promotion through associativism and agro-ecology, which allow them to rescue traditional health care practices and environmental protection when organizing work and daily life.