“Revision of Labor Law will help create jobs.”
A critical aspect to consider in relation to this likely revision is that the current Labor Law is dated August 25, 2023 (exactly two years ago) and came into force less than a year and a half ago.
The main rationale for the previous legislative revision was to adapt our labor market to new market trends, new ways of approaching work, and the need to bring our labor market inline with a more technologically active world.
The process of drafting the present Law underwent a challenge that served to refine it, namely the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in sudden redundancies, suspensions of activity, changes in working patterns, restrictions on gatherings of people, which led to the reorganization of some operating models, delivery times and schedules, restrictions on the movement and distribution of goods and services, among other unusual circumstances at the time.
Now, as advocates of legislative stability, we do not oppose changes when market vicissitudes so require.
However, what is now being proposed as a basis is a permanent feature in any society where the majority of the population is young and has high birth rates.
In an attempt to contribute to the upcoming debate, throughout the period of validity of the current law, we have observed situations that do not contribute to economic development and the stability of companies.
One of these is the situation provided for in Article 113(3)(g) of the Labor Law, which establishes that the following are considered justified absences: ... absences of the employee to provide assistance to their spouse, partner or civil partner, children under their care and foster children, father, mother, stepchildren, siblings, grandparents, stepfather, stepmother, parents-in-law, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, in the event of illness or accident. The effects of these justified absences do not determine the loss or impairment of rights relating to remuneration, seniority or holidays.
For example, a worker may, for each of these relatives, be absent from work without any reduction in holiday entitlement or loss of pay and, during the planned period, take their statutory leave. In short, the concept of household and dependent's established in the previous law has been broadened.
Other legal systems address these social situations by providing for a certain number of days of justified absence per year, referred to as “sick leave”, or by setting a limit on the number of days per year with loss of remuneration, as established in Article 255 of the Portuguese Labor Code, for illustrative or comparative reference purposes only.
In short, in this reflection, we focus on an aspect that we consider crucial for the survival and proper functioning of companies. The deregulation of this aspect, namely, not setting a limit on the number of days or period of these unjustified absences without loss of pay, and the extension of eligibility beyond the household and/or parents, in the direct or collateral line, is a risk to productivity, operational stability and the functional environment within companies and, ultimately, to the labor market.
