The thanatopolitic of essential services

reflections on the right to health of digital platform workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil

Abstract

During the SARSCoV-2 virus (COVID-19) pandemic in Brazil, many workers who performed activities considered essential, most of them precarious, remained exposed to the virus. Within this group of workers, there are delivery people via digital platforms, who have had an increase in working hours, a decrease in income and greater exposure to the virus. The immunization and protection of some individuals, generated the lack of protection of others. The politics of life became thanatopolitics, that is, a politics of death. In this sense, is there a life policy that guarantees the right to health for these workers? In order to reflect on the right to health and evaluate the strategies and measures that legitimized the exposure of delivery people via digital platforms, firstly, through Roberto Esposito's theory, the immune paradigm in the pandemic context is discussed. In a second moment, the adopted policies that considered some essential activities are evaluated. Subsequently, secondary research on the working conditions of delivery people via digital platforms is  analysed. Finally, unrelated to the debate about the contractual nature, there is a debate about the prediction of the right to health of this category of workers. It is concluded that the legal system provides that every worker, regardless of the legal nature of the employment relationship he has with the service taker, is subject to rights that guarantee his safety and health at work. In this way, the State and companies that benefited from the work of others should have adopted measures to ensure health and safety protection in the execution of activities.