The ILO’s Convention n. 155, an international human rights treaty that bears the
hierarchical-normative position of supralegality in the Brazilian legal-constitutional
system, provides for the possibility of triggering an environmental strike for the self protection of life or health, by a single worker. The research problem rests in the
(in)effectiveness of ILO’s Convention n. 155, due to the series of obstacles that
militate in favor of its ineffectiveness: the worker's vulnerability; the lack of protection
for the environmental striker and the difficulty in recognizing the guarantee of
employment; the lack of strengthening of anti-discrimination protections; the lack of
recognition of the right to refuse work situations that involve an imminent and serious
risk to life or health; deficiency in the collective governance of the work environment;
the inexistence of an adequate exercise of the right to environmental information, at
its three levels (right to inform, right to seek information, and right to be informed);
and the worker's lack of technical knowledge to adequately exercise self-protection.
The research goes deeper into the institute of the individual environmental strike and
the general objective is to seek ways to guarantee the effectiveness of its outbreak,
by a single worker. The research presents itself theoretical, for the delimitation of the
environmental strike in its individual bias; jurisprudential, to recognize the meaning
and scope of the institute in the iterative, current and notorious jurisprudence of the
Superior Labor Court; and empirical, to verify the effectiveness of the environmental
strike. The results show that, currently, the individual environmental strike is not
effective, lacking proposals for its effectiveness. It concludes with the presentation of
proposals for its effectiveness: caution in recognizing the abusiveness of individual
environmental strikes, with inquiry into the extensive information offered to workers,
so that they could exercise this right/guarantee; a reverse onus clause, that shifts the
burden of proof onto the employer; the communication to other social actors and not
just to the worker's direct superior; a supported decision-making, with recourse to
technical advisers outside the company; the guarantee of indemnity for its free
exercise, without fear of employer reprisal; and the protection of self-protection as an
intrinsic corollary of freedom of association, with the presumption that the worker
acted in good faith in defense of his life or health.
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