15/05/2013
CLT, seventy years, traces paths and proposes challenges Autor: Tribunal Superior do Trabalho
In November 2003, the jurist Sussekind Arnaldo, former minister of TST and member of the committee that, in the 40s, developed the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT), was invited by the then Minister President of TST, Francisco Fausto, the hold lecture on its history and its prospects, entitled "60 years of CLT: a critical view". The goal was to address the update of Brazilian labor law. Sussekind died in 2012, the day of his 95th birthday and just a year to see the CLT turns 70. Today, 569 parliamentary proposals in Congress suggest changes in your text.
Sussekind was just 24 when he and four other members formed the commission setting-up of CLT. The invitation was the Minister of Labour government Getúlio Vargas, Alexandre Marcondes Filho, and the initial idea was to develop a Consolidation of Labor Laws to harmonize, in one legal system, three distinct phases of the Vargas government, began with the Revolution of 1930.
The committee found it very difficult to organize the text, since according Sussekind, not only wanted to expose the laws and their applications, but to explain its principles and fundamentals. "We understood that it would be possible to consolidate the minimum wage legislation without a chapter on wages, wage concept, elements, etc.." Finally, on May 1, 1943, through Decree-Law 5,452, CLT was sanctioned.
Defense
Also at the ceremony in 2003, Sussekind made a robust defense of CLT to those who accused him of having been the result of fascist ideas, a copy of the Carta del Lavoro Italian, 1923. The lawyer quoted some points of the document, as it provides that the night work must have a remuneration higher percentage than the day job, or the right to a weekly rest. And replied: "It is fascism? Do not believe."
In 1977, the government of Ernesto Geisel, another ministerial committee was appointed to revise the CLT points. "This committee drafted a new CLT, whole," said Sussekind. In the text, were stipulated 30 days holiday and the possibility of converting a third in a cash payment, in addition to regulation of collective holidays.
But the project represented little progress, considering the end of term of Geisel. Although the President has determined to publish the project in its entirety, his successor, João Batista Figueiredo, decided to archive it and appointed another committee to make the code work.
Since then, the CLT has undergone several governments, vested political and economic, not to mention the very dynamics of the work, profoundly altered by new technologies, leading to automation and thus transforming the relations between employers and employees.
Certainly, no historical document through 70 years without criticism or revaluations. Today, among the various topics under discussion on the CLT, two are considered relevant by jurists and parliamentarians: the outsourcing relationship and union.
The issue of trade unions
One of the criticisms of CLT in their development concerned the right of association. In his text, there was an article stating that the union should have the monopoly of representation and, therefore, there would be a single union to represent all members of the professional or economic category - away from the idea of union pluralism guaranteed by the Constitution of 1988.
Deputy Assis Melo (PCdoB-RS), with strong links with the labor movement, emphasizes the importance of CLT. For Melo, we should not only celebrate and honor the CLT and its past, but also reaffirm it as a tool to guarantee workers.
The congressman agrees, however, that the legislation needs to advance in some points, for example, the stability of the union leader (referred to in Article 8, Paragraph VII of the Constitution). "You can not work with the direction of nine trade union leaders base that has 3 or 4 thousand companies," he says. "This is a chapter that should move forward," he says.
Reference Brazilian unionism and former president of the Central Union of Workers (CUT), the now Deputy Vicentinho (PT-SP) also proposes improvements on the union question. He is the author of the Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC) No. 29, along with Rep. Mauricio Rands (PT-SP), which seeks to establish in Brazil freedom of association fully, through the ratification of Convention 87 of the International Labour Organization (ILO) . The main objective is to strengthen the unions, that 88 of the Constitution, are not even mentioned. According to the proposal, the central earn legal status of the union. To Vicentinho, approval of the proposal "would be a dream."
Easing
Among the proposals that follow in parliament, one of the most controversial refers to the regulation of outsourced work. One is the Bill 4330/2004, authored by Mr Sandro Mabel (PMDB-GO), for which outsourcing is an evolution. Mabel says his project aims to eliminate the figure of the evil employer and take the market those precarious the workforce, and defends outsourcing specialties.
For the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), the subject is a priority. The complaint is that the practice, although routine, is not regulated and generate many millions in fines and legal disputes for businesses. The project is under consideration in Congress since 2004.
The issue was the subject of a public hearing held in 2011 by the TST. On occasion, Vicentinho, author of the Bill 1621/07, which is opposed to Mabel, defended the ban on outsourcing core activity of the company. His project proposes equal working conditions, including wages, between direct employees and contractors, and union participation in the process of hiring of labor, among others.
Update
For the Chief Justice Labour Minister Carlos Alberto Reis de Paula, CLT is not a "mere aggregate" device sparse, but "a text with normative structure, axiological and principled" that guides the Labour Law for 70 years . This, however, does not exclude the need to adapt to new times. "The CLT, like all legislation should be updated not only to compile the legislation created later, but also correct archaisms and adapt to the changes brought about by the evolution of society, especially by a post-Fordist production logic," he says.
The update advocated by the President of TST, however, has to preserve the core guiding principles of labor law to give effect to fundamental principles guaranteed by the Constitution. "One must always reaffirm the protection of basic worker rights and the pursuit of effective representation by the unions," proposes. The mark 70 years for Carlos Alberto, should serve for reflection, aimed at building a "more humane, reconcile and live together where justice and freedom."
(Ricardo Reis and Carmen Feijoo)
