If you leave the country, it’s Uber’s problem, says minister – 07/03/2023 – Market

The Minister of Labor, Luiz Marinho (PT), minimized this Tuesday (7) the possibility of platforms leaving the country in the event of labor regulation of applications and said that “if it leaves, it is Uber’s problem”.

The minister participated in a meeting of the FPE (Parliamentary Front for Entrepreneurship), in Brasília. In February, Marinho defended the creation of a new transport application if the platforms stopped operating in the country due to his disagreement with future labor regulations in the sector.

This Tuesday, he stated that the issue involving workers on the platforms was complex. “A very aggressive question, what if Uber and if the platforms don’t like the formalization process? I’m sorry. There is a law in force in Brazil and we are all subject to it”, he said.

The minister said that the regulation was the result of a debate and construction with the participation of society. “From then on, there is a legal framework”, he pointed out. “Ah, but what if he leaves? If he leaves, it’s Uber’s problem. But he won’t leave, because Brazil is the first market in the world”, he said, before emphasizing: “but nobody wants anyone to leave, much for the contrary.”

Marinho stated that the intention is to guarantee rules of social protection and appreciation of workers. “You have to be in control so you don’t have excess hours, because that makes accidents easier,” he said.

The minister said that he heard businessmen and workers individually and that he will join the entities that represent the platforms to guide the understandings at the same table. “The ideal here is for the parties to find an alternative, find common ground and the government is simply the intermediary of this conversation. If there is no agreement, the government will obviously offer its vision to Parliament.”

Marinho returned to talk about the possibility of Correios occupying the space left by an eventual departure of Uber.

“I said that logistics companies, such as Correios, can think about having an application to offer as an alternative and perhaps a better alternative than the one that exists on current platforms, which have the vision of the necessary profit, the exploitation of the necessary manpower, which a company of the nature of Correios might not need, simply covering the costs would be good enough.”

In his speech, the minister also reiterated the criticisms of the FGTS (Senior Severance Indemnity Fund) anniversary withdrawal, specifically for the creation of the payroll loan guaranteed by these resources. “Today there is a 30-year bank contract anchored in the guarantee fund,” he said. “Things are not quite like that, there is cruelty against workers here.”

Marinho defended that FAT (Fundo de Amparo ao Trabalhador) resources be used to help finance a proposal for a comprehensive professional secondary education to be debated.

“I’ve been asking myself if we should only look at the challenges of the moment, but if we shouldn’t provoke a universal debate on secondary education, discuss the need for full-time education and low-income youth to have a stipulated scholarship for it, not being subject to having to go to the labor market early and unequals their opportunities in the future labor market.”

According to Marinho, no decision has been taken on the matter.

He also defended replacing the payroll encumbrance with the invoicing encumbrance. “And the contribution to sustaining the pension should come from companies’ revenues, and not from the payroll”, he said. “Because by being linked to the payroll you sacrifice too much for companies that have a strong workforce impact.”

Marinho pointed out, however, that the person dealing with the issue is Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance).