Um sorriso forçado: análise sobre a precarização do trabalho hoteleiro e suas implicações para os trabalhadores

Abstract

This sociological study aimed to understand how neoliberal logic and flexible accumulation redefine the processes of labor flexibilization and precarization in the hotel sector, part of the service industry. Wage-related, social, and professional issues were examined, as well as forms of hostility originating from both employers and guests. The analysis focused on segments of the working class, particularly wage earners in the service sector, who are often treated in an inferior manner by customers positioned on the opposite side of the counter. It was observed that this sector has increasingly relied on technologies aimed at employee surveillance, along with new managerial strategies disseminated throughout the twenty-first century. Flexibilization frequently proved to be a euphemism for labor precarization, while the accumulation of tasks was encouraged as proactivity and multifunctionality within the framework of flexible accumulation, understood as a form of expropriation that has come to dominate the contemporary service sector. Such mechanisms, rather than functioning as tools to support hotel work, have been converted into factors that intensify labor exploitation. These transformations have been accompanied by operational problems in hotel management systems, constant surveillance through continuously operating cameras, and the requirement of permanent readiness imposed by social media, which demand immediate responses to guests' requests. Furthermore, the social problems present in this sector have often manifested with the complacency of employers and in the absence of firm action by the sector's legal representation. Issues related to working time, access to personal information, individualization, moral and sexual harassment, low wages, and multifunctionality were identified as constitutive dimensions of labor precarization in the twenty-first century. Classical sociological authors, as well as contemporary researchers in the Sociology of Work and in hospitality studies, contributed to the understanding of a form of employment marked by the physical and psychological exhaustion of workers. The bibliographical study of authors associated with historical materialism served as a theoretical tool supporting the analysis of the service sector. The research analyzed the neoliberal State and its economic models, which exert pressure on workers through low wages and high turnover rates. A bibliographical review grounded in classical sociological authors was conducted, highlighting that such authors had already pointed to the precarization of labor under liberal and conservative policies, responsible for sustaining a structure that devalues the working class within the service sector. The relevance of the relationship between the Brazilian State and the processes of labor precarization was also emphasized. From this point onward, the study developed a discussion of precarious work in the hotel industry, incorporating contemporary debates such as the proposal to abolish the 6×1 work schedule (six days of work for one day of rest), discussed in the years 2024, 2025, and 2026. The study analyzed the perception of front-desk workers regarding their exhaustion and their level of job satisfaction, as well as the practice of the "forced smile" as a mechanism for the simulation of emotions, an approach situated within the subfield known as the Sociology of Emotions. Documentary analysis of the 2017 Labor Reform and of the "Green and Yellow" Provisional Measure (MP) provided empirical support for the dissertation. It was concluded that the precarization of hotel labor results from the articulation between neoliberal policies, the fragility of union representation, and the dismantling of labor rights, with direct effects on workers' physical and mental health.