The Superior Labor Court (TST) changed its understanding regarding the effects of overtime worked on benefits such as vacations and thirteenth salary. The new interpretation may result in increased labor costs for employers.
The payment of paid weekly rest, which considers in its calculation how much overtime is done by an employee in addition to his usual workday, now has an impact on other variables, such as vacation, 13th salary, prior notice and the Time Guarantee Fund of Service (FGTS), according to the decision.
According to the minister reporting the case at the court, Amaury Rodrigues, workers will benefit from a small increase in the amounts to be received when they provide services in usual overtime hours.
Every worker is entitled to one paid day off per week (generally on Sundays). Rodrigues explains that when this worker works an extra hour over the entire week, he receives one more hour of paid rest on the day of rest. It is this extra hour that will start to be computed for the other benefits.
For example: if an employee receives BRL 2,200 per month to work from Monday to Saturday, an hourly wage of BRL 10 is reached, considering 220 regular hours in the 30-day interval.
In this case, when the worker works an extra hour a day, he must receive R$ 15 for it (R$ 10 with the increase of 50% provided for by law). That would come out to R$105 per week: R$90 for overtime six days a week and an addition of R$15 for paid rest on Sunday.
With the change decided, those R$ 15 paid on Sundays, referring to the usual overtime hours from Monday to Saturday, will be computed in the calculations of vacation, Christmas bonus, prior notice and FGTS. This is considering an average of 4.5 weeks per month.
According to the minister, the TST revised the understanding because it understood that there was an arithmetic error. This is not just a legal issue.
The decision, taken by the majority of TST ministers, does not include the processes already in progress in the labor court. Most of them discuss overtime. In these cases, the previous understanding will apply.
Source: With information Agência O Globo