Introduction The objective was to analyse the association of violence at work with work conditions.

Methods A questionnaire was applied to 1129 individuals. A correspondence analysis (CA) was performed to verify the association between working conditions and violence. It was done analysis of the association between the type of aggressor and the types of violence.

Results 19.0% were victims of violence at work. 50.6% were services workers and 58.3% came from the formal labour market. Individual external to the workplace committed 34.1% of violent acts. Boss committed 30.8% of verbal violence and 25% of psychological violence. 38.5% of verbal violence and 25% of physical violence came from the worker’s family member. The CA found a greater association between moral violence and verbal violence in the work at transportation, storage, postal services, education and industry. Physical violence and racism were associated to domestic services and trade.

Discussion The bad working conditions were associated with higher occurrence of violence. These findings point the need for discussion of this issue in Brazil.