Glaucia Fernandes speaks to UOL about new teleworking rules

Report from UOL showed recent changes in labor law, brought about with a Provisional Measure that regulated teleworking and brought changes to points such as food vouchers and measures for situations of public calamity. Dr. Gláucia Fernandes, partner in the litigation and labor consultancy area at Maneira Advogados, was interviewed to talk about the topic.

Change in labor law is positive, but requires control, lawyers say

Giuliana Saringer
From UOL, in São Paulo

Image: iStock
29/03/2022

The federal government announced last Friday (25) a package of changes to labor laws, and the MP (Provisional Measure) with all the details was published this Monday (28). The main new features include the regulation of teleworking, changes to food vouchers and measures for situations of public calamity. Experts consulted by UOL praised some of the changes, but warned that some of them may raise doubts when applied in practice and require greater supervision.

It is worth remembering that MPs have the force of law and begin to come into effect upon publication, but they need to be approved by the National Congress within the correct period — initially 60 days, extendable for another 60 — to actually become laws.

See what the experts said about some points determined by the MP:

Regulation of teleworking

“Remote work was widely used during the pandemic and there is no specific legislation for it. The fact of having a rule can be positive for professionals and companies”, says Rodrigo Marques, coordinator of the labor center at Nelson Wilians Advogados.

One of the biggest problems with remote work is controlling the workday. Because they are at home, many people work longer hours a day, without being paid for it.

For Gláucia Fernandes da Silva, partner in the litigation and labor consultancy area at Maneira Advogados, remote work is already a reality and legislation is coming to provide more legal security.

“The measures announced, mainly on hybrid work and teleworking, are positive, because our work relationships have evolved quickly and, with the pandemic, we have taken another step in the way we provide work. The CLT [Consolidation of Labor Laws] dates back to 1943 and has not kept up with this evolution. The measures are important to protect all employees, as this is a reality, it cannot be ignored and it has to be supported”, says Silva.

What changes:

• Possibility of adopting a hybrid work model by companies, with a prevalence of face-to-face work or vice versa. Today, the CLT only talks about completely remote or in-person work;
• If the worker is at the company in person for specific tasks, even if habitually, it does not detract from remote work;
• Gives priority to remote work for workers with disabilities or for those who have children up to four years old;
• Telework can be contracted per day, per production or per task;
• Interns and apprentices will be able to join remote work.

Silva makes a reservation regarding preferably remote work for people with disabilities and those who have children up to 4 years old. For parents, the advantage is spending more time with their children, excluding travel time.

“For people with disabilities, it is also positive to think about facilitating commuting, but this can be seen as discrimination depending on how it is applied. The employer is obliged to keep their workplace accessible and this rule cannot be a loophole to isolate and discriminate against these employees. The decision needs to be made jointly between the employee and the company”, says Silva.

Food allowance

The MP also changes the rules for paying food vouchers to workers, with the aim of ensuring that the resources are only used to buy food. At a press conference, the executive secretary of the Ministry of Labor and Pensions, Bruno Dalcolmo, said that the MP seeks to correct a market distortion that exists in the hiring of supplier companies. "What we're doing here is curbing this fraud, closing this valve. It doesn't make sense for food assistance to be used to pay for cable TV," he said.

“This measure will make it a little more difficult to use it in a distorted way. In practice, it needs stricter supervision, with the possibility of penalties for establishments, for it to be complied with,” says Silva.

One of the changes is to prohibit discounts or negative rates when hiring companies that provide food assistance. In practice, the companies providing the tickets gave discounts to the companies that contracted the services for their employees.

To compensate for this loss with the discount, aid companies charged higher fees to restaurants and markets, increasing the cost to the end consumer.

Calamity situations

The MP also institutes new labor rules intended for periods of public calamity. For Silva, the new law regulates something that has already been authorized at other times, but he warns: the government needs to make it clear what it considers a calamity.

“Before, we didn't have regulations for calamity situations. But we need to clarify what a calamity is, otherwise it will just be another way of restricting rights and harming employees. The measures are good when applied in real cases”, he says.

• FGTS (Service Time Guarantee Fund): the MP authorizes the delay in the payment of FGTS
• Collective or individual vacations: regulates the anticipation of vacations or granting of collective vacations, in addition to authorizing the anticipation of holidays;
• BEm (Emergency Employment and Income Preservation Benefit): if necessary and the budget is available, a Presidential Decree may authorize companies in the affected area to adopt the Emergency Employment and Income Maintenance Program, which provides for a proportional reduction in working hours and wages or temporary suspension of the employment contract, by agreement between employer and employee, with payment of BEm.

https://economia.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2022/03/29/especialistas-avaliam-mp-com-mudancas-nas-leis-trabalhistas.htm