This article presents the partial results of a research carried out with the workers of an oil refinery during the implantation of new technologies in their industrial plant. The research attempted to identify what effects these changes in the work process had on the workers' health. The results showed that the new automation technologies altered the work content, in the sense that science becomes imbedded in the machine and the causal nexus between the illness and the work tool is no longer apparent. On the bases of the results, we discuss aspects that may contribute to the construction of a new pedagogy of education for health that uses work as its educational principle.
new technologies; work as an educational principle; education for health; workers' health