This article discusses the conditions in which the professional work of social workers is conducted. It is based on the "configurations of labor in capitalist society," the counter reforms of the State and the (in)consequential alterations in the nature and orientation of social policies, conducted by the interests of capital throughout the world. Thus, the understanding of the impoverishment of the labor force of social workers takes on meaning in the analysis of the more general movement of class struggle and the needs of capital to organize to guarantee the realization of its primary function, the increase of profit.
capital offensive; counter reform of the State; professional labor; increased precariousness of labor conditions