O TRABALHO DOS/DAS ASSISTENTES SOCIAIS NO ÂMBITO DO SISTEMA ÚNICO DE ASSISTÊNCIA SOCIAL(SUAS): entre as normas e a precarização nos Centros de Referência de Assistência Social(CRAS) de São Luís/MA

Abstract

I study the work of the social worker within the Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS) from the Social Assistance Reference Centers (CRAS), in São Luís, Maranhão. I talk about the expansion of the professional working market within the national policy for social assistance which nationally established the SUAS and the CRAS in which the incorporation of the social worker in the technical crew is a legal requirement in the policy effecting process. In the empirical data analysis, I consider the centrality of the working category and the assumption that the professional working conditions experience determinations of the working organization mode in the capitalist society and the configuration of social policies in responses of the State to the expressions of the social issues in the contemporaneity. I emphasize the policy for social assistance from its new rearrangement, through: the 1988 Federal Constitution, the Social Assistance Organic Law (LOAS) and the National Policy for Social Assistance (PNAS); I emphasize the centrality that this policy assumes in the last two decades in the set of policies for social protection in Brazil and the insertion of Social Service in the CRAS. I recall the historical process of this insertion in the social care service in São Luis, where I verify that the work of the social workers within the SUAS, through the CRAS, expresses a contradiction between the policy rules and the precariousness that challenges the profession Code of Ethics. In the final considerations, I point out that conservative elements in the professional practice are identified, persisting shortsighted practices that meet the provisions of the social assistance policy, which reinforces the maintenance of users in the state of need in relation to their subsistence.