The objective of this article is to study the consequences in the work in Brazilian banks after the deep changes, mainly after the implementation of the economical plan from 1994 - "Plano Real". In their efforts to adapt themselves to the new economical contingency of the country and to the increase in competition in this sector, the banks have restructured their organisations, downsized their staff, replaced workforce for computerizing systems which allow the treatment of data using less workers. These changes have not occured without consequences for the workers. These people have had to adapt themselves to the new situation, to the increase of pressure of work, of the exposure to risks and, to the end of job stability. Based on a research carried out with cashiers from a bank, an analysis of the repercussion of those changes for the workers' psyche was done with particular attention to the ways of the mobilization of intelligence and of their personality in the work and in the use of collective strategies of defence to fight the suffering. In order to carry out the research and to analyse the data, we have used the theoretical and methodological approaches of the Psychodynamics of Work, a subject which studies in which situations the conditions of the organisations determine the direction and the subjective mobilization in the work as well as the consequences of those conditions on the workers' health.
productive restructuring; psychodynamics of work; workers' health