Moral violence and suffering at Public Organizations in Brasília, Brazil

The study describes the experiences of moral violence at Public Organizations in Brasília, Brazil. It is based on the theoretic-methodological Psychodynamics of Work approach. It considers moral violence at work as visible or invisible situations that involve intense suffering as a result of a set of attitudes and behaviors deliberately and systematically practiced inside of organizations. This is caused by threats and humiliations towards workers in order to pressure them to leave the project, the position, the workstation or the job. The research was undertaken using twenty workers at Public Organizations in Brazil. Individual semi-structuralized interview were made. Analysis was done through a thematic categorical analysis. In general, results point to different treatments; discrimination and segregation of employees in the administrative area; painful and unhealthy work conditions; extremely hierarchy in relationships; errors severely punished; punishment through transfers to places further from home; no professional ascension; demises; repression and humiliations. The study concludes that these workers were submitted to violent relations at work. Suffering is too intense and the strategies used to cope with it are failing. This situation is provoked through invisible and dissimulated behavior that intentionally and frequently causes constraints and threats to the workers, thus characterizing a mob situation. Also, we can conclude that violence at work generated illness in these workers. More research is required to confirm the results.