This study addresses chronic illness due to work as a factor of social and economic exclusion, analyzing the process of reintegration into the labor market of workers with repetitive strain injuries (RSI) that were employed originally in an electronics company in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, Brazil. We considered initially 722 workers, who had received communications of work accidents (CAT) due to RSI from 1987 to 1992. Information collected through questionnaires sent by mail and by interviews conducted in 1994 and in 2000 was analyzed with regard to the disease process, the discrimination suffered until job termination, and the search for a new job, based on the theory of social representations. Of 250 questionnaires, the vast majority of respondents were women (98%) and young (67,2% were under 34 years old). Among laid-off workers (n=195), fired mostly between 1991 and 1992, 89,2% were still unemployed in 1994. The most frequently cited difficulties for reintegration into the labor were symptoms in the arms, functional limitation, the stigma of the disease, and of being a former employee of the company. These issues raise the need to rethink the system of health protection and surveillance of workers, as well as to establish a public policy on occupational rehabilitation.
repetitive strain injuries (RSI); cumulative trauma disorders; work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMD); reintroduction into the job market; physical; psychossocial and professional rehabilitation; theory of social representations
