LABOR ACTIVITY OF JUSTICE OFFICIALS FROM JUDICIARY POWER AT THE STATE OF RIO GRANDE DO NORTE: RISKS AND PRECARIOUSNESS
Mental health and work; work of justice officials; occupational and psychosocial risks.
This study sought to contribute to the deepening of the perception of justice officials regarding their working conditions, possible psychosocial risks and impediments to work activity, and their relations with processes of suffering and illness.The justice official is that public servant in charge of ensuring compliance with the determinations of the magistrates, in activities that are eminently external and in a context of presumed risk and precariousness.This research was carried out with justice officials who worked within the scope of the Judiciary Branch of Rio Grande do Norte, having contemplated the initial phase of survey, through the Brazilian adaptation of the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) instrument. This questionnaire sought to measure the magnitude of psychological job demands and the decision latitude by the worker, considered psychosocial factors of risk at work. Documentary research was also carried out on the reasons that led these employees to absence from work to treat their own health in 2016 and 2017. The study also included the analysis of data from a conversation circle, aiming to deepen knowledge about the profession. The results confirmed the initial assumption of precariousness of the professional activity of justice official in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, considering that such activity has been performed in circumstances of fragility, vulnerability and danger, which place these servants in a situation of impediment of the power of professional action, besides contributing to the weakening of the workers’ collectives and the forms of their organization. It was found that, due to the variables mentioned, justice officials have become ill more frequently for emotional reasons than the other categories of the TJRN.The results confirm the importance of reorganizing the work from the perspectives of the justice officials themselves and endorse the need to plan concrete strategies aimed at mitigating the psychosocial risks to which they have been subjected.