A quick tour of the city center is enough to verify the visible increase in the presence of vendors. street vendors in an irregular situation. Improvised benches made of cardboard, boxes and screens are positioned on sidewalks and even in parts of some streets.
On them, various types of merchandise: fruits, socks, CDs, electronics, slippers, glasses, nail ornaments, toys, umbrellas, among many other items, of different natures.
The situation is part of a complex context, which involves, among other actors, the economic situation, the lack of public policies aimed at education and work. In addition to the disorganization of the urban space, which is not restricted to Juiz de Fora, being verified to a greater or lesser extent in many irregular cities throughout the country.
In this scenario, the first factor in evidence is the urgency of guaranteeing financial independence for these workers. Although he has been selling fruit and vegetables for over 20 years, street vendor Jorge Eduardo, 43, says that some time ago he had to start selling on the streets.
Unemployment
Unemployment also made Antônio Carlos Elias, 54, seek his livelihood by working on the streets. “I worked at a firm. I left and entered another one, in this one, I was sent away quickly. I got nothing and had to come out into the street, do anything to survive.” According to him, it's been three years working that way. “I come every day and nothing is right.
We depend a lot on others, on people's financial situation. If they have money, they buy it and we win. That's how we get around”, says Antônio. He points out that the ideal situation would be to have an irregular signed work card. "I live alone. For now, I'm managing to take it, but it's not right, especially when the marshals are on top. We lost the goods, there is no way to work in peace. At the moment it is breaking the bank, but it is not safe.”
regular
For regular street vendors, the situation is also difficult. They understand the presence of irregulars because, in the past, they also had to fight to legitimize their workspace. But they see situations that go beyond the occupation of these workers. “What bothers most today is not so much having irregulars, even though the city is in chaos. There are among the regulars those who rent their spots. It became a monopoly, there are people with two, three rented points. We barely manage to pay our taxes, while they do that and still sell the same products as us”, says one of the street vendors interviewed by the report, whose name will be preserved.
Street vendor Adilson Inácio da Silva believes that there is a lack of supervision and a more focused look at these issues, with the search for knowledge of these problems. “We have nothing against irregulars, we've been in their shoes. These people cannot be suppressed. But something needs to be done about these other issues that don't get the attention they deserve. We understand the inspection situation, we need them to act on the streets.”
Street vendors and informality: part of the whole
The Brazilian labor market is strongly marked by heterogeneity. The whole situation of difficulty is not exclusive to street vendors. In fact, according to the professor at the UFJF Institute of Human Sciences, Ana Claudia Moreira Cardoso, this reality is not isolated, it represents a dimension within the whole, which also includes the increase in the numbers of self-employed workers, outsourced workers, people who work at home, intermittent contracts, among other modalities.
“From 2017 to 2019, there was an increase of around 38% in outsourcing, for example. For every six vacancies that are created, one is an intermittent contract. 101,000 job openings were created for this type, which is already approximately 15% of the total.
Data from the last quarter of 2019 from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), a survey carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), show that there was a decrease in the unemployment rate of six percentage points. From 11.6% in October, November and December 2018, to 11% in the same period of 2019. The average annual rate has already reduced from 12.3% in 2018 to 11.9% in 2019. However, the professor warns that even with a result that, apparently, would be positive, the difficulty in offering quality jobs continues.
The composite annual average rate of underutilization of the workforce (which takes into account the percentage of people unemployed, underemployed due to insufficient hours worked and in the potential workforce in relation to the expanded workforce) decreased little, from 24.3% in 2018, to 24.2% in 2019. The total of discouraged people in the 4th quarter of 2019 reached 4.6 million people, around 4.2%, remaining stable in the comparison.
insufficient earnings
Another important factor that needs to be considered, in the evaluation of professor Ana Claudia Moreira Cardoso, is the income of these people. Starting from a family nucleus with four people and up to three adults, imagining that in this group there is one outsourced and one intermittent, for the teacher, it is possible to say that the income is insufficient. In this sense, it is possible to think about precariousness in two ways: in the way of hiring and in the working hours. “It's no use saying that you've formalized it if you don't have the conditions. In the capitalist mode of production, the subject depends on work, preferably a quality job, to survive. The biggest contradiction is having a system that tells you that you will only survive with a job with the minimum quality, which does not offer you that job.”
In this way, the lack of social welfare will make, as the teacher says, people look for what they have, because they would have no other options. “The data show that those who lost the most income were band one, people earning up to R$1,600. Other bands, particularly those earning more than R$8,200, managed to recover a bit.” As explained by the teacher, the groups with the lowest income are the ones that spend the most on food, which was one of the items with the highest price increase. The result is that families with lower incomes are earning less and spending more on essential items. With more economic measures under discussion, such as the Economic Freedom MP, new changes in work are already planned, which can further disrupt these families.
Consequences
Based on all these indicators, unemployment rates should not increase, according to Ana Claudia, but the jobs that will be generated, on the other hand, do not have the quality that would be desirable. “This not only disrupts the structure of the family, but also generates greater pressure for the State. Because people start to get sick. While some work much less than they need to, others work very intensely and actually get sick”, he points out.
The way out that she considers, for this situation, is popular pressure. “It is the only way. There is no other. You cannot resolve this individually.” For this, however, she reinforces that institutions need to be more active.
