Abstract
The study aimed to evaluate the role played by the Unified Health System’s position, career, and wage plan in Guarulhos municipality, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, as a possible tool to improve labor relations, as recommended by the Ministry of Health. The research carried out between 2013 and 2014 was based on the collection and the analysis of the content of interviews conducted with managers and health worker focus groups. It was noted that the position, career, and wage plan has a strong technical and administrative bias, being seen as a tool for organizing workers in positions/jobs at health service locations. It is emphasized that initiatives that could promote professional fixation and development towards a career were affected budgetary restrictions that have compromised their application under the law. Hiring under it, which takes place via a public contest, included only direct administration employees, and the hiring of human resources through non-state partnerships was concomitant with its implementation. It was concluded that the position, career and wage plan is an important, albeit limited tool to improve work in the Unified Health System, and it is necessary to expand discussions on the effects of the State’s Administrative Reform in health and its impacts on the organization of the workforce and on the concept of precarious work, linked only to the observance of labor and social rights.
Keywords
precarious work; position, career and wage plan; management of work in health; Unified Health System