Andressa Poltronieri, 32, is a hammer, a street vendor selling candies and chocolates on buses in the south of São Paulo. From the pains and joys of working on the streets of the capital, she reconciles her profession with household responsibilities and child care.
In these paths she travels, we bring a diary of her life in this special report in text and comics.
before boarding
Since 2016, this has been Andressa’s routine on buses in the south of São Paulo. But to be a hammer, the day starts well before getting on the bus.
In the morning, she gives her nine-year-old son breakfast and takes him to school close by. Afterwards, he goes to the shopping streets of the Santo Amaro district, also in the south zone, to buy the sweets he is going to sell. At 9 am, with the goods in the basket, he walks along Avenida Cupecê, going back and forth on the buses.
Andressa lives in Americanópolis, in the region between the districts of Cidade Ademar and Jabaquara, regions where more than 500 thousand people live. Becoming a hammer was the path when she lost her sales promotion job.
Unemployed, she decided to take her skills as a trader into the collectives, offering gift cards from an NGO.
At that time, he was earning only R$ 200 a month. Without the expected return, he decided to change course and buy his own merchandise.
That’s when he bet on candies, chocolates and chewing gum to help support his family. It can add up to R$90 on a good day.
“When you can make good money, you make R$7, R$8 on each bus, but generally R$3 to R$5 is the average. You can get around R$80, R$90 [por dia]. Who takes it these days with a formal contract?”
The first few times she got on a bus to sell, she was embarrassed to meet people she knew in the neighborhood, but she soon got used to the environment.
“It was something different from what I was used to, but I took it literally. You get to know the people. A lot of people recognize me and end up buying too.”
Strategies
This job is far from easy nor should it be romanticized. But it is the way in which Andressa and thousands of workers in São Paulo have made a living.
“Many people don’t know what a hammer goes through, how many buses he got on, what he does, how many people he talked to”, says the saleswoman, who developed some techniques.
Leaving the sweets with passengers started when she realized that many feel like buying, but don’t manifest. With the goods in hand, it speeds up the process.
The choice of bus is also strategic. With patience, she looks for a point that has a considerable amount of people, because she is sure that a bus will stop.
To be able to sell more and better, Andressa also opted for times when the collective is not crowded, so she can advertise the product and not run the risk of being robbed.
In addition, the hammers usually work in the region where they live so as not to generate conflicts.
To get on the bus, she uses two tactics: give a thumbs-up, a kind of code that tells the driver that she wants to get in the back door.
If the conductor does not stop, she tries to get on while the passengers are getting off. The strategy of entering without paying is the way found to guarantee income at the end of the month. “[Se tiver que arcar com a tarifa de] R$ 4.40 for each bus that enters, we will work just to pay for the ticket.”
Most drivers and collectors are friendly and allow you to climb out the back door, she says, even though it’s prohibited and jeopardizes your job.
Advantages and disadvantages
Andressa says there are some advantages of being a hammer. There is, for example, more proximity to passengers who usually take the bus at the same time.
“There’s a lady who, if I don’t come for a month, she says she doesn’t eat a candy for a month”, she says.
“And they are cheap products, what you would usually pay R$ 2 in a bakery, here you will pay half price at most.”
Among the disadvantages are the risks of informal work. She has already been injured in sudden closings. There is also a lot of reaction from those who do not like the performance of street vendors in transport and complain about their circulation.
“People think that every hammer is there because they want to have fun, because they don’t want to find a job, because it’s more comfortable for them, but it’s not like that”, he says.
“Many people order me to get a job, as if it weren’t a job. I’m offering something, it’s a trade like any other, it’s not a beggar.”
She reinforces that what she is doing is working. “I think it’s an example of battle, the person not having a job and still not waiting on the couch. We are an example of not stopping, of being active, of not waiting to fall from the sky.”
Who are the hammers?
The street vendor profession was regulated in 1940, through Decree-Law No. 2041. However, an article prohibits the offering of goods within moving transports.
In 2020, Bill No. 5,381 was created to legalize workers who work in collectives, but it is still pending in Congress.
The informality rate in Brazil grew between 2020 and 2021. In the country, there are 38 million people working in the informal market (or 40%, according to IBGE). Of these, 25 million are self-employed, as is the case of the hammer workers.
They are Brazilians who, without formal employment, are looking for an alternative to earn money. Selling as a street vendor was an alternative for some, like Andressa, even without legalization.
There is no recent data on how many act as street vendors or transport hammers. The last specific survey of the category pointed to 532 thousand street vendors and street vendors who worked on their own in 2008.
In the city of São Paulo, 17 thousand street vendors were registered in the process called Tô Legal, from the city hall, but for sale at fixed points, not in transport.
In any case, what is known, at least in the perception of those who ride the buses, is that there has been an increase in informal vendors since the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic.
Street vendors in the pandemic
Just before 11:30 am, Andressa takes a break to pick up her son from school. She has lunch and, in the afternoon, returns to the journey on Avenida Cupecê.
During this break, she recalls that in these five years of work, she managed to live without needing, despite the profession being full of uncertainties.
The pandemic was one of those uncertain times. The period of isolation because of the coronavirus reduced the movement of people in transport and impacted her income.
“Before the pandemic, we sold very well. Each hammer on the avenue took their R$120, R$150, at least”.
Andressa didn’t stop working. In fact, he extended the journey to secure the income. “I arrived at 6 am and left at 6 pm.”
She also saw an increase in hammers on buses. “During the pandemic, it increased too much. Here on the avenue it was me and three more. Now when everyone comes, 15 people come, you know?”
Andressa says that she has already helped people trying to enter the area. Once, a man who had just arrived from Piauí came to São Paulo with the promise of a job that he didn’t work out.
“He had nothing, he had nowhere to stay and he was asking for money on the bus so he could support himself until he got a job”, he recalls.
“I had invested everything in sweets to work the next day. I gave this man a box of candy. A while later I found him selling it on the bus and he said he would do that until he got a job, thanks to me. I liked it a lot. .”
Future
Despite the informality and the lack of legalization of the work of the hammer workers, Andressa sees herself as a businesswoman.
“Isn’t an entrepreneur one who invests? I’m a nano-entrepreneur. Every day I invest a little, but it’s an investment.”
A nanoentrepreneur is one whose gross revenue in the calendar year is equal to or less than the Individual Income Tax exemption limit.
This definition appears in Bill 6012/2005 that created the Statute for the Protection of Informal Workers. But the proposal was rejected in 2007.
When she learned that her son was thinking of pursuing her profession, she said that there were many possibilities and that he had a lot of time. “He’s only nine years old, he can chase the future and, at 18 years old, he’s doing something better.”
To fulfill her dreams of studying and setting up a business, she has at the tip of her pencil the amount she would have to save. “By increasing my daily goal by R$50, R$60, I can already pay for my college [de gastronomia ou administração] for a year or two.”
While that dream doesn’t come, it’s 5 pm. Time to head home before starting another day in the hammer’s journal.
I have over 8 years of experience in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have also written for a few news agencies. I mostly cover healthcare news, but I am also interested in other topics such as politics, business, and entertainment. In my free time, I enjoy writing fiction and spending time with my family and friends.
