Dublês do setor elétrico: Reflexões sobre identidade e trabalho terceirizado

Assuming that work is a structuring part of the individual’s psychic and social life, this article seeks to understand the relationship between identity construction and the work outsourcing process in the electrical sector of Minas Gerais. To this end, a combination of data obtained from both literature review and case study, which included an in-depth interview with an outsourced worker from the electrical sector, was used. A precarious situation associated with the vulnerability of workers’ health and safety, with direct impacts on the fragility of their social identity, was observed. The electrician interviewed says he feels like a stunt double, who replaces himself in his own work scenario, but in worse conditions and without proper recognition, taking the risk of the scene without receiving the performance credits. Considering that precariousness as a work situation is also an experiential condition, and that there is no separate dynamic between what the employee experiences and how he constructs himself, it was concluded that by lacking basic health and safety conditions, outsourced electrical workers are at risk and socially vulnerable. Outsourcing as a perverted pragmatic reduction of capital costs has amplified the mechanisms of exploitation, generating an objectivity adverse to workers, which leads to precarious subjectivities. Finally, the association between work precariousness and social precariousness is made clear, since the precariousness of work as a subjective experience has impacts on the construction of social relations, on the scope of access to rights, and the constitution of citizenship.