DOMESTIC WORK AS ESSENTIAL IN THE PANDEMIC OF COVID-19 IN MINAS GERAIS AND THE EXPANSION OF THE LEGAL VULNERABILITY OF WORKERS

Contextualization: Historically, domestic work is reduced to a lower position compared to other professions, resulting in the invisibility and vulnerability of the category, which slowly conquered its fundamental and labor rights. Objective: To analyze the extent to which determining domestic service as essential reinforces the vulnerability of the category in the Covid-19 pandemic in Minas Gerais. Method: This is an exploratory and qualitative study, in which technical procedures of bibliographic and documentary research and the deductive approach method will be used, as well as field research to validate the theoretical proposition. Results and contributions: The vulnerability of domestic workers was accentuated with the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, an unprecedented health crisis, in which their work was considered an essential service by the decree that instituted the “Onda Roxa” in the state of Minas Gerais. With the imposition of government decrees, many workers were relocated to the home office, others had their activities suspended, that is, many professions had protective sanitary measures, but housework remained untouched during the pandemic, maintaining its invisibility in the labor scenario and social. With this, there was an increase in the vulnerability of the category of domestic workers who, even though they were part of the work group, did not have due social recognition or any specific state tutelage, being, as they almost always were, relegated to their own fate. Conclusion: It was concluded that the normative measure of establishing domestic service as essential served, in practice, to reinforce the vulnerability of the domestic worker in Minas Gerais.