The perspective of the diversity of employment relationships and their consequences on nursing professionals

Changes in the political-legal modes of relationships established between hirers and professionals, aiming to minimize employment charges, generate a large variety of work contracts. This study focuses on describing the diversity of employment relationships and on exploring their correlation with the work conditions of nursing professionals hired as contractors in a teaching public hospital in Brazil. The research, performed on a qualitative basis, was completed by means of structured interviews, using the speech analysis and the quantification of the characterization data of the sample. The team of contractors nursing professionals consist of 79 professionals hired as contractors. 69 people were interviewed, 58 of which were nursing assistants and 11 were nurses. Out of the total sample, 49.28% have other employment relationships, working up to an average of 61.03 hours per week, thus making their wages higher up to 3 times. As far as working conditions are concerned, the professionals complained about the wages differences in comparison with the ones of those who are regularly employed by the hospital, about the instability caused by the temporary employment relationship and by the absence of employment rights. Speeches revealed that professionals go on in such conditions because of their financial need, which is not entirely fulfilled, yet the wages is an essential portion of the family income (72.46%). When it comes to some sort of benefit, they see in this job a learning opportunity. This form of hiring has existed for the last 15 years in the researched field and it has represented wages loss, an excessive number of working hours, a multiplicity of employment relationships and disrepute in face of the employees. Although the deployment of neoliberal policies has supported and strengthened the possibility of making employment relationships more flexible, professionals have expectations about keeping a stable job covered by employment rights.