Job Precariousness: Supply Chain Management in a Waste Pickers Association

Abstract

Waste pickers are key players within municipal solid waste management and an important link in the recycling chain. Waste pickers perform their activities in precarious conditions: they work in bad weather; run the risk of traffic accidents; come in contact with insects that transmit disease and suffer from weight overload. These conditions are aggravated by the lack of labor rights and guarantees, as well as the instability of income and exploitation in commercial processes receiving derisory prices for materials. In this context, the present research seeks, in an interdisciplinary way, the supply chain management interface with the aspects that constitute the precariousness of the pickers’ work, aiming to identify and foster proposals for infrastructure and supply chain improvements of an association of recyclable waste pickers through dialogue and construction with the workers concerned. For this, the ergonomic work analysis was used for information gathering and diagnosis that will subsidize the construction of a process map through the SIPOC tool. From the documentary analysis of the project, the result of part of the association’s production process was reached, that is, its recovery of recyclables in 2018, which reached a volume of 141,893.7 kg. This study sought to provide moments of reflective discussion with the pickers about the organizational processes of the association, in order to collectively construct proposals that enable better working conditions for them.