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Cyber taylorism and repetitive strain injury in telemarketing operators in Salvador, Bahia

This paper aims to understand the disease process by repetitive strain injury (RSI) on telemarketers and its relationships with the management strategies associated with new technologies. For this qualitative study thirty operators and also RSI patients were interviewed who were treated at a clinic, between 2007 and 2009 and observations carried out in the workplace of ten companies. Adverse conditionants were observed resulting from technological changes and their communicational and virtual character, which require new forms of care to be considered in the prevention of RSI. The notion of social networks, enabling one to operate "hyperbodies", in the relations between operators and customers, helps in understanding the subjective aspects that favor the occurrence of tensions and conflicts in the virtual universe. These are harmful management strategies, that result in particular in the development of RSI, with the social production of stigma and perversion of labor medical practices work in sync with the principles of Taylorism.

labor; repetitive strain injuries; telemarketing; new technologies; worker's health


Universidade Federal da Bahia - Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas - Centro de Recursos Humanos Estrada de São Lázaro, 197 - Federação, 40.210-730 Salvador, Bahia Brasil, Tel.: (55 71) 3283-5857, Fax: (55 71) 3283-5851 - Salvador - BA - Brazil
E-mail: revcrh@ufba.br