Trabalho dos/as entregadores/as plataformizados/as: uma proposta de protocolo ao TRT da 5ª região para julgamento com perspectiva etnico-racial

Abstract

In light of the social, economic, political, cultural, religious, legal, and racial violence suffered by the Black population, which historically occupies labor spaces marked by subordination, precariousness, maximum exploitation, low pay, and social vulnerability, it is necessary to discuss the importance of the Labor Judiciary adopting a racialized perspective in its decisions, combating racial inequality and improving the quality of life of Black workers. With the new morphologies of work, app delivery workers, who are predominantly Black, young, and poor, seek social rights guarantees in the labor protection system. However in the face of a judiciary marked by the reproduction of the legal hermeneutics of whiteness, these workers end up not being recipients of protection, suffering the effects of judicial rulings that disregard the issue of race and the social inequalities produced by a racist society. In this sense, this research aims to point out the criteria that judges and appellate judges of the TRT 5 may follow in assessing labor complaints filed by platform delivery workers, based on the protocol proposed for judgment with an ethnic-racial perspective. Through an assessment of academic production and content analysis of 75 judicial decisions handed down by the Labor Court of Bahia between the beginning of 2020 and August 12, 2024, this qualitative research critically investigated the repercussions of the absence of ethnic-racial debate in judgments involving platform delivery workers. It was observed that only two decisions, handed down by the same judge in different cases, brought up the ethnic-racial debate as a basis for analyzing the request for recognition of the employment relationship and payment of severance pay. In addition, it was identified that TRT 5, which is a space of power occupied mainly by white people, reproduces, albeit unconsciously, racism in its decisions, missing the opportunity to promote the social emancipation of this black working class, which sells its labor in the uberized world of work, a reflection of the neoliberal discourse of entrepreneurship, camouflaging the employment relationship that often exists. Therefore, the suggested ethnic-racial perspective trial protocol seeks to guide TRT 5 labor magistrates to think in a racialized way about specific cases involving these service proletarians, in order to enforce the social labor rights that are denied to them, perpetuating conditions of inferiority and dehumanization.