Worker who anticipated birthday withdrawal will have access to FGTS when fired, says Marinho – 02/16/2023 – Market

The Minister of Labor and Employment, Luiz Marinho (PT), said this Thursday (16) that workers who have anticipated the birthday withdrawal will be able to withdraw the FGTS (Guarantee Fund for Length of Service) if they are dismissed.

“What we are going to (do) immediately is to take the worker out of the trap, in which a dismissed person cannot withdraw his fund”, said the minister in an interview with SBT News.

Marinho stated that the issue will be decided in March, but that the idea is to make it easier for an unemployed person not to be helpless and to be able to withdraw the balance to which he is entitled even if he has chosen to use the birthday withdrawal.

The birthday withdrawal was created in 2019, during the government of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), and allows the worker to withdraw, once a year, a percentage of his balance, plus an additional installment (the value varies according to the balance in the FGTS account).

Adhesion is voluntary, but those who opt for the birthday withdrawal no longer have the right to withdraw the entire FGTS balance if they are dismissed by the employer without just cause. Only the 40% fine is retained.

Currently, it is possible to anticipate the value of birthday withdrawals, using the fund as collateral for the credit operation. It works like a loan, in which the worker receives the entire contracted amount at once and pays interest to the bank.

According to the minister, there are institutions that offer payroll loans to customers using the modality as an anchor.

Marinho cited the example of taking out a loan of R$22,000. Even if the worker has BRL 50,000 of FGTS balance, the entire amount is blocked as guarantee for the financial transaction.

“In my perception, the banks are taking the workers’ Guarantee Fund and charging interest,” he said. “Why are we going to keep withholding this worker’s money? What we are doing today is cruelty that the previous government did, to be a trap in the hands of the banks.”

In the interview with SBT, Marinho said that the government will authorize that workers who took out this type of loan —in anticipation of the birthday withdrawal— will have access to the resource in the event of dismissal.

The minister pondered that banks will not default, adding that his technical team is working on a rule.

However, the portfolio holder highlighted that he is not concerned with the banks in this discussion. According to him, this should not be the responsibility of any ministry. “Who should worry about the banks are the banks themselves.”

The FGTS anniversary withdrawal has been attacked by Marinho since his first days in office.

The argument is that the FGTS was instituted with the purpose of protecting workers in case of dismissal.

“Whoever is fired cannot withdraw the balance. It leaves the worker on the street of bitterness at the moment when he most needs to withdraw. He is optional, but he is wrong”, he said in an interview with Sheetin January.

In addition, resources from the Fundo de Garantia are used for investments in housing, sanitation and infrastructure. Looting would be, in the minister’s view, a way of emptying and weakening the fund.

Marinho considers that the end of the modality will be discussed at the FGTS Board of Trustees, which will meet in March. According to him, the extinction proposal should not have much problem to win a majority of votes.

“Perhaps the banks will be isolated, only the board members of the banks [discordando],” he said on Thursday.

The discussion about the birthday withdrawal has appeared on the labor agenda since the beginning of the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

In the evaluation of economists opposed to extinction, the modality allows the worker to use part of the resource that is rightfully his. One of the arguments is that the device helped to increase aggregate income, generating increased consumption, as well as an increase in payment and negotiation of debts.