Covid-19 becomes occupational disease
The pandemic is likely to have an even bigger impact on the finances of companies. The Ministry of Health classified covid-19 as occupational disease, according to ordinance no. 2,309, recently published in the Daily Gazette. This may increase the employer contribution to Social Security that is calculated based on work-related accidents, the so-called environmental risks of work (RAT), as well as the probability of losses in labor lawsuits.
With the change, companies will have to prove that the employees had not contracted the disease in the workplace, something quite hard to do, lawyers say. Now, workers who need to be on leave for more than 15 days for treatment will be entitled to sick pay from Social Security and job stability for one year, as well as to the Workers' Severance Fund (FGTS) for the time of leave.This measure "puts companies in situation of vulnerability and in a defensive position regarding a pathology for which it has high chances of not being guilty, especially in environments like offices, in which the employee is not in contact with the pathological agent," says Jorge Matsumoto, with law firm Bichara Advogados.
With the update of the list of work-related diseases, Mr. Matsumoto says, companies lose their main argument in lawsuits, which was that covid-19 couldn't be considered because it was not on that list. "Until then, the margin for defense was wider." Brazil has so far confirmed 3.9 million cases of covid-19, according to the Ministry of Health.
Lawyer Luiz Antonio dos Santos Junior, partner of Veirano Advogados, says it would be a mistake for Social Security to adopt what the Health Ministry's ordinance states and recognize covid-19 as work-related disease without necessarily confirming the causal link, or proof that the company was at fault. "As a rule, the recognition of covid-19 as occupational disease depends on confirmation that the disease was contracted in the workplace or because of work," he says.
"How many accounts of people who have not left home and caught the disease. Very complicated to make this assumption [of work-related disease]," says lawyer Juliana Bracks, with Bracks Advogados. For her, only in certain situations it would be possible to assume the worker caught the disease at work, as in the case of housemaids who continue working with their bosses' infected. "Now the company will have to go find out where the person is going, how their house is, how their neighborhood is or if they went to...
Para continuar a ler
PEÇA SUA AVALIAÇÃO