Government project for applications creates category union

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) sent this Monday (4) to the National Congress a complementary bill that regulates transport work via apps. The proposed guidelines, which only apply to transport in four-wheeled vehicles, will be processed under a constitutional urgency regime.

The Chamber and Senate will have 45 days, each, to analyze the text, which provides, in addition to minimum payment per hour worked, a mandatory social security contribution – deducted at source and collected by companies – and the creation of unions for the category, workers and employer.

The ministers of Labor and Employment, Luiz Marinho and Social Security, Carlos Lupi, representatives of drivers and companies transporting people via applications, such as Uber and 99, who contributed to the preparation of the proposals, participated in the signing ceremony of the sending message. . Since May 2023, the group has met to discuss regulations, Lula’s campaign promise in the 2022 elections.

Lula highlighted that when the negotiations began no one believed in the success of the project, but that the working group had given a “bath of intelligence”. “A while ago, no one in this country believed that it would be possible to establish a negotiation table between workers and businesspeople, and a project like this would come out, which guarantees rights to workers using passenger transport apps. […] You have just created a new modality in the world of work, in which people want to have autonomy but also need a minimum guarantee”, he stated, remembering that the project also meets the workers’ desire for autonomy.

Marinho highlighted the difficulty of negotiation and denied what he called “controversies in the press” that the government was defending the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT). “We need to build momentum. Observe what is happening in the international market. And listen to companies. That’s what we did. We learned a lot this year,” said the minister.

During the negotiations, Marinho even equated the service provided by app drivers to “slave labor”. The government actually considered classifying professionals by application under the CLT, but it did not receive support from companies or the Judiciary, which has been divided on the issue.

Lula asks for negotiation with Congress

Lula warned the ministers and advisors present that the project would face difficulties in Congress. “You know you have to look for the deputies. Each bench has a leader, so you’re going to start by calling the leaders to talk. We need to not get angry with the cons, we need to smile and say ‘mate, come on, For God’s sake, we are workers'”, said the PT member.

The government’s project is already the target of criticism. The president of Novo, Eduardo Ribeiro, stated that “the regulations proposed by Lula will kill transport applications in Brazil and take away the livelihood of 778 thousand families”. According to Ribeiro, the measure proposed by the PT administration “is simply terrible for drivers, platforms and users, and appears to have been done to make the sector unviable.”

Federal deputy Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG) also spoke out against the project on social media. For him, the Lula government “wants to destroy the livelihood of millions of workers.” The parliamentarian also said that he will never vote in favor of “a project that suffocates market freedom”.

For federal deputy Luiz Philippe de Orleans e Bragança (PL-SP), the government decree means two “blows” to the sector and the consumer. The first is the establishment of the minimum wage. “The measure eliminates those drivers who can do a small volume of trips, those who do odd jobs, temporary work, just to help with the monthly bills. When you establish the minimum, only those drivers who are actually working on the network intensely and practically every day, every week, they will be able to meet this demand. In other words, the supply of app drivers will decrease”, says the deputy.

Another “blow” is the issue of Social Security which, for the deputy, aims to meet the government’s “collection drive”. “When Social Security is established, they are thinking about the collection process. That’s exactly what the government wants. To collect money because there is a huge pension gap,” he says. “The problem is this government’s fundraising drive, because they have holes and don’t know what else to do. They are going to increase these attempts to collect more and more for Social Security.”

Luiz Philippe believes that the government will try to regulate all labor situations to increase revenue. “This government is making the situation worse because it is creating fiscal theft in other sectors, it is spending more to stay in power. For me, it is increasingly obvious. They want to collect more and more in labor situations that are deregulated at the moment. And When regulation begins, the supply of jobs and possibilities in these sectors will decrease, in other words, these sectors will implode.

See the main rules presented by Planalto for regulating the profession

• Working hours: 8 hours, with a maximum possibility of 12 hours, if there is a collective agreement;
• Minimum remuneration – R$32.09 per hour of work, with R$8.02 relating to work and R$24.07 relating to driver costs; the monthly remuneration will be at least one minimum wage (R$1,412);
• Annual adjustment: Equal to or greater than the minimum wage adjustment;
• Maternity benefit: Working women will have access to the social security rights provided for INSS insured workers;
• Unions: the app worker will be represented by a trade union in the professional category “four-wheel vehicle app driver”. The category’s employers’ union is also planned. They will be responsible for collective agreements and unions will also represent workers in judicial and extrajudicial demands.
• Suspension rules: platforms will have to follow guidelines to exclude workers from their apps;
• Pension: worker will pay 7.5% on “contribution salary” (25% of gross income) and company will pay 20%;
• benefits: meal vouchers from the 6th hour worked and medical and dental services.

Delivery companies were left out

Delivery companies such as iFood and Rappi, and worker representatives also participated in the tripartite group created by the Ministry of Labor, but did not reach consensus on values ​​and contributions.

The main impasse is regarding the time logged into the application. Delivery people want to be paid for the time they are available on the platform. Companies only accept payment for productivity, that is, for the number and time of deliveries actually made.

Both Lula and Marinho criticized the delivery companies for the lack of negotiation. The minister even classified the work as “highly exploitative”. Lula added that the government “will be so annoying” that iFood will be forced to negotiate.

The minister’s speeches were also criticized by opposition parliamentarians. Federal deputy Rosângela Moro (União-SP) classified the statements as “a true horror show” in a post on social media. She highlighted that “while the workers have declared, countless times, that they are against the regulation, the minister uses a mocking tone to shove the project down the throat. It was never by or for the worker.”

Government found an intermediate alternative, says expert

For Insper’s Labor Law professor, Antônio Galvão Peres, the government created an intermediate model between the employee and the self-employed, similar to that adopted in England. “It was a way of guaranteeing workers’ social security rights,” he says.

For him, unionization was proposed because it is a basic premise for a collective agreement. “It is necessary to establish legitimate representation parties for employees and employers for negotiations and this can only be achieved with union representation”, he explains.

In the professor’s opinion, the proposal should help in resolving most of the conflicts that have been referred to the Labor Court. Currently, around 10 thousand cases are being processed in the Labor Court regarding app-based transport platforms.

STF will judge the existence of the employment relationship

The Lula government’s bill comes ahead of the Federal Supreme Court’s (STF) judgment on the topic, which is more comprehensive and will apply to all platforms. The judges unanimously approved, on Friday (1st), the general repercussion in the discussion about the existence or not of a labor relationship between app drivers and service platforms. Therefore, after deciding on the merits of the case, all courts in the country must follow the STF’s understanding when judging a similar case.

The action’s rapporteur, Minister Edson Fachin, said that “it is up to this Federal Supreme Court to grant a standardizing and effective response to Brazilian society regarding the compatibility of the employment relationship between app drivers and the company that creates and manages the digital platform, in view of the principles of free enterprise and social labor rights enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic”.

Until then, decisions in the Labor Court have been conflicting. The majority has voted against the existence of an employment relationship, but there are opinions in the opposite direction in the Superior Labor Court (TST) itself. In December last year, the First Panel of the Court decided that there is no link with the platforms. The same understanding was adopted by the plenary in specific decisions.

Ongoing processes may be suspended until the merits are judged by the STF.