Policies of Safety and Autonomous Regulation: The Case of a Uruguayan Paper Company

Abstract

The study analyzes the processes of autonomous regulation of the risk concerning the production of paper in a first line company in Uruguay. The dominant culture of security in this business is based on the knowledge of the trade, composed by a set of implicit rules governing the formation and transmission of knowledge. This culture of trade implies that the standards of protection of the workers from occupational hazards are neither imposed by management nor by the headquarters, but constructed in the daily interaction among the workers. In the context of the difficulties met in order to build a joint regulation of security between the management of the company and the Union, the knowledge and experience of the workers appear as the source of more effective safety regulation. However, this autonomous management is crossed by inter-generational and sectors tensions and contradictions, preventing the construction of a labor reflectivity on this theme. In this enclave, the Union loses capacity for action in terms of demands aimed at preventive and reactive security since it is focused on negotiating the impacts of new policies of labor and employment on the company management. There is also a low level of reflectivity from the workers in relation to the components of their culture of trade. Although it actually operates, it is not stated by the collective, and even less recognized as such in the framework of tension and competition between sectors and work teams.