STF decides to regionalize nursing salary floor through collective negotiation

The plenary session of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) decided that the minimum wage for nursing, applicable to professionals with employment contracts under the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT), must be established on a regional basis. The definition will occur through collective negotiations in different territorial bases, each with their respective base dates.

In the decision handed down last Monday (18), the Court considered the concern with possible layoffs and the essentiality of health services, deciding that the negotiated terms will prevail over the legislated terms in this context.

A disagreement presented by Minister Dias Toffoli opened the debate, leading the majority of ministers to understand that the initial 60-day deadline for applying the minimum wage had become, in practice, an obstacle to negotiations. The majority’s analysis indicated that the parties, employees and employers, assumed that the minimum wage law would be automatically applied after the expiration of this period.

Minister Gilmar Mendes, aligned with Toffoli, emphasized that the Labor Court should only intervene when negotiation is not viable, stating that, in this case, “interested parties must be recognized as having the prerogative to initiate collective bargaining to resolve the conflict, in form of the law.”

In the same session, the STF plenary defined that the salary floor refers to the overall remuneration, not the base salary, which corresponds to the minimum to be paid depending on the full working day. In cases of working hours of less than 8 hours per day or 44 hours per week, the remuneration may be reduced proportionally.

Ministers Luís Roberto Barroso (reporter of the action), Edson Fachin, André Mendonça and minister Cármen Lúcia were defeated, as they accepted the embargoes for declaration to a lesser extent.

The national nursing floor was sanctioned on August 4 last year by then president Jair Bolsonaro (PL). The text, resulting from intense debates in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, established the national minimum wage for the category at R$4,750, a value that also serves as a reference for calculating the minimum wage for nursing technicians (70%), nursing assistants (50%) and midwives (50%).