Ergonomics in the Brazilian Judicial System: a case study from the Rio de Janeiro State Court of Justice

摘要

The Brazilian judicial system is being reformed due to its lack of efficiency and to high social expectations. There are also many work-related injuries, including musculoskeletal and psychological disorders. Ergonomics has been introduced into some services so as to address these health problems, and to help their stakeholders better organize their work systems. This paper aims to discuss ergonomics' contribution to judicial work systems and the effectiveness of a specific mode of introducing ergonomics to organizations - an ergonomics committee. This paper describes and evaluates the introduction of ergonomics conducted by an academic ergonomic team in the Court of Justice for Labor in Rio de Janeiro. A documental analysis (reports and official documents) and interviews conducted with the central players (ergonomists and justice stakeholders) were the methods applied. These provide a narrative of the whole process that describes the three interventions over the last five years and discusses the development of an internal ‘ergonomic committee'. The participation of external ergonomists led to some improvements in many workplaces (new furniture and layout), technical systems (software) and work organization. The ergonomists also trained justice stakeholders in ergonomics to support the launch of the ergonomic committee. However, because there were no full time ergonomists in the service, consequently its capacity to solve ergonomic problems limited. This case shows firstly that judicial work systems appear to be a very important field of research and intervention in Brazil. Secondly, the ergonomic committee may be seen only as an intermediary step of introducing ergonomics to organizations; the ergonomic introduction itself calls for the development of professional ergonomic services.