Number of labor lawsuits grows in São Paulo, but does not reach pre-retirement level

Not even the pandemic, the economic crisis and the rise in the level of unemployment made the volume of labor lawsuits presented to the 90 labor courts in São Paulo beat the level of the period before the labor reform. The increase projected for the post-pandemic period, however, already appears in the numbers of shares distributed.

From January to September 2022, 259,900 new cases were presented to the courts in the capital, Guarulhos, Osasco, ABC and Baixada Santista. In 2016, the volume was 356.1 thousand in the same period.

The expectation of the new president of the TRT-2 (Regional Labor Court of the 2nd Region), judge Beatriz de Lima Pereira, who took office just over a month ago, is that the year will end with 330,000 new lawsuits filed.

For her, however, the Labor Court today faces a new drama arising from the combination of pandemic and economic crisis. 🇧🇷[São] People who launched themselves in the market, in entrepreneurship, without the necessary preparation”, he said.

“During the pandemic, there was a lot of disruption [de empresas]🇧🇷 Today we have a very large volume of executions that are not thriving because they are finding these ex-entrepreneurs in a situation similar to that of the ex-employee, without liquidity, in executions that drag on and worry us”, he said, in an interview with Sheet🇧🇷

Critical of the labor reform, which completes five years this Friday (11), Beatriz Pereira argues that it is up to the Legislature to adjust points that, in her assessment, distorted relations between employers and employees, but discards the need for a new reform.

“I think that the perspective of the reform was on the business side, based on a discourse that employing in Brazil is very expensive and that there are many obstacles to a direct negotiation between employer and employee”, he said.

This discussion, for the president of TRT-2, is empty. “You can’t look at this issue and assume that they are people on an equal footing, that they can argue equally.”

A judge for 20 years and a labor magistrate since 1986, she was responsible for reporting the first decision of the São Paulo court on the recognition of the link of an app driver. She was in favor of the company’s obligation to register the worker, a decision later reversed in the TST (Superior Labor Court).

For Beatriz Pereira, the activity mediated by technology platforms gives the impression of not being subordinated and autonomous, which, in her assessment, does not correspond to the reality of workers. The regulation of this type of work, she says, is urgent, but it needs to come from the Legislature.

“Personally, despite defending the role of the Judiciary, and knowing the importance of decisions, I think it is a very relevant issue for you to leave this responsibility only to the Judiciary, since we do not have a legal framework. protection regulations for these workers.”

See the main excerpts from the interview given by the new president of TRT-2 to Sheet in his office in São Paulo.

The promises of labor reform

One of the things that was talked about was to create other modalities, such as the intermittent contract, and that this would bring more jobs. I have no data that all of this actually happened. In fact, I don’t think this is even being used on a large scale by employees, because it’s not productive. You have a person who is not linked to the enterprise.

It is not a matter of having a romantic vision of work relationships, but people, the entrepreneur and the employees are there for a common purpose, which is to provide a service, to manufacture a product. To the extent that people do not feel that they belong, relationships are more difficult.

Bargaining power and weakening unions

The reform brought an article with a list of topics that can be negotiated without observing the minimum level of the legislation, which is a radical change of things. The negotiation was always to go up, not go down. This is a characteristic of bringing things closer to civil law relations, that there is equality, let’s sit down and negotiate.

But what we are seeing today is a weakening of unions. If we look at the entire history of unionism in Brazil, we would say that today it is not at its best and one of the situations that worsened this was the end of the compulsory contribution.

End of union dues

Personally, I have never defended compulsory contributions, I understand that the ideal is for the contribution to be spontaneous, for the worker to seek the union for the role he has, for the performance he has.

But we lived under this rule of union tax for 80 years and from a reform that makes rights more flexible, which in a way is giving prestige to individual negotiation, it comes to say that collective bargaining can prevail over legislation, but that unions will do that?

Unions that now, in addition to experiencing a crisis of representation, of identity, are experiencing an economic crisis. This is a contradiction of the reform.

Reform points changed by the STF (Federal Supreme Court)

It is natural that points were questioned, such as the one related to free justice, in which not even the beneficiary of free justice ceased to be condemned in the so-called sum of succumbence [valores que a parte vencida em um processo tem de pagar ao advogado da vencedora], which is a civil procedure institute. In the Labor Court, the principle is that of gratuity. There was only provision for payment of fees when the union sponsored the action.

Reduction in the volume of labor lawsuits

The forecast of conviction of the beneficiary of free justice was a factor, I would say that the main procedural aspect that, at first, made the labor lawsuits plummet, the fear of conviction.

There has already been a decision in the Supreme Court, which did not completely exclude the possibility of conviction, but minimized it. In my opinion, the ideal was for us to resume our previous status. It is not appropriate for the beneficiary of free justice to lose the process and suffer an execution to pay the opposing party’s lawyer.

One-off changes to the renovation

I think we can, depending on who is interested, touch on specific issues that can be reviewed without a new reform, just review what was done in 2017.

Effects of the pandemic on the Judiciary

Workers came to point out that companies were not adopting adequate protection measures, we had problems in the health area with this type of complaint about the provision of protective equipment.

We had discussions about the nature of the disease, for people who work in the hospital environment, for example, about the possibility of characterizing contamination by Covid as an occupational disease. These were one-off questions, which were new during the pandemic.

What else brings the worker to justice

I would say that the tone of the usual Labor Court proceedings remained [mesmo durante a pandemia]which are claims for severance pay and overtime, receipt of the Guarantee Fund and prior notice.

mandate priorities

Today, the main concern is to create conditions for the resumption of our work after the pandemic. It is a question that seems simple, but it is not. With the pandemic, other forms of work emerged, with the performance of procedural acts by videoconferencing.

Now, for all of us to go back in person, you need to have a whole technology installed. In São Paulo, only in the capital, in Barra Funda, we have 90 branches, outside the south and east zones. For you to contemplate all the possibilities [do modelo híbrido], it is necessary to have microphones and cameras, and this is being seen now. For you to have the 90 rods working, you have to have an internet signal to handle all this.

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Beatriz de Lima Pereira

Graduated from the Law School of the University of São Paulo. She took office as substitute judge of the TRT-2 in 1986. She worked in Cubatão, Poá and in the capital. In 2002, she was promoted to judge. He presided over the 15th Panel of the TRT-2. She assumed the presidency of the court on October 3 for a two-year term.