A tutela do meio ambiente de trabalho e a responsabilidade do empregador pelo adoecimento mental decorrente da exposição da pessoa que trabalha a riscos psicossociais

Abstract

This article discusses the work environment degradation issue, with emphasis upon the matters related to the psychosocial risks that arise from the labour conditions and the labour organization; as well as the possibilities of employer accountability for mental illnesses of the workers, occasioned by the exposure to such risks. Mental sickness in work environments isn’t a new phenomenon, however, it’s equally true that the concern with this subject has been gaining, over time, repercussion, mostly on the discussions about the situations in which violence is trivialized, e.g. workplace bullying, authoritarianism and competitiveness that exist in the interpersonal relationships, the unceasing demand for productivity and the lack of acknowledgement of potentiality and subjectivity of the workers, in the academic, juridical, health, and social security fields. We understand that the work environment represents elements, interrelations, and conditions that influence the employee in their physical and mental health, behaviour, and values in the work locus. The theoretical-methodological model adopted in this research was qualitative, with a legal-sociological approach and dialectical methodological reasoning. Data will be collected through bibliographical and jurisprudential research, so that it is essential to survey the theoretical production on the themes to be studied, in order to present a dialogue with the main authors who work with the issues addressed. From a Marxist theoretical background, we defend the idea of work focus on the life of each subject as an ontological element that acts in the change of human nature and the change of the human being. We employ the psychodynamic construct to point out issues concerning the psychological function that labour has and its impacts to the health-illness issues of the working individual, in the face of the social, political, and economic changes that are headed by the productive restructuration, globalization, and neoliberalism. This study shows some of the most meaningful contributions that are, above all, doctrinal, related to the tutelage of the workplace environment, protection of the mental health of the employees and the ensuing accountability of employers responsible for the illnesses arising from the exposure to work-related psychosocial liabilities. Beyond the employer’s civil accountability, we defend that the employer must ensure that the work environment is safe and healthy, acknowledge that the psychological health is tied to the physical integrity, and that it’s a sine qua non condition to adopt prevention measures to eliminate or, at very least, mitigate the psychosocial liabilities to which the employees are exposed to, given that they are in the face of unwavering fundamental rights, i.e. the right to health and to a safe and healthy work environment.