The number of call centers is increasing in the world and in Brazil. In our country it involves around 550 000 workers. This article narrates a collective action for better conditions for work of telemarketing operators in Brazil, based on diseased operators' and the Union's requests to the Brazilian Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE). Those workers have Work Related Musculoskeletal disease. In addition to inspecting telemarketing companies to assess work conditions, the National Commission on Ergonomics of MTE, between the years 2000 and 2005, organized events joining professionals of research institution from universities, employer representatives, and workers representatives (Unions) to study issues related to this activity. At the same time, this Commission prepared the inspectors of the MTE, in all country, to proceed ergonomic evaluations. All these resulted in 2004 on a work group composed by various interested public institutions and in the year 2005 in a Proposal of a Technical Recommendation n° 1 to be applied to telemarketing operators, elaborated by the Department of Labor Health and Safety (DSST/ MTE). The Brazilian's Ministry of Labor and Employment, facing employers' resistance against a governmental regulation for telemarketing activity and also Unions' inconsistencies, created a technical group to elaborate a proposal of an attachment for the regulation n° 17 ("Ergonomics"). This article registers the process of social construction of this regulation, its intention and challenges.
call centers; telemarketing operators; occupational diseases; ergonomics; technical regulations