The Public Prosecutor’s Office found irregularities in the employee registers
The electric user Rio Grande Energy (RGE) must pay BRL 300,000 in collective non-pecuniary damages after the Ministry of Labor (MPT) discovering that the employer did not keep proper records of employee travel. The company was also obliged to correct the situation, under penalty of a fine of R$50 for each irregular registration.
Both the amount of the compensation and the amount relating to any fines must be assigned to the Department of Health of Gravataí, in the Metropolitan Region of Porto Alegre. The determinations were established in the first instance by Judge Márcia Carvalho Barrili, titular of the 4th Labor Court of the Municipality, and maintained by the 6th College of the Regional Labor Court of the 4th Region (RS).
In filing the public civil action in 2018, the MPT argued that, during a civil investigation it had initiated the previous year, it had found several irregularities in employee records. By way of example, the Authority brought to the trial about four thousand documents demonstrating the use of the so-called “British point”, i.e. time records which are invariable, or with minimal variations, which do not faithfully demonstrate the duration of the journeys.
According to the MPT, such irregularities were verified in both manual points and electronic records. Having said that, the Organization requested the payment of compensation for damages to the community and, as a preliminary step, the obligation on the part of the employer to keep reliable records of the working hours of its employees, under penalty of a fine.
Analyzing the complaint, the Gravataí judge initially accepted the request for an injunction and immediately ruled that the company regularize the situation. In subsequently confirming this order, in the sentence, the magistrate referred to the abundant documentation presented by the MPT proving the irregularities. “At least until September/2017, employee time recordings were manual and visibly done in one session,” he noted. “By the way, a lot of it with the same pen and the same pattern of lettering,” he pointed out.
The judge highlighted that the vast majority of the documents presented uniform entry and exit times, with minimal variations in some cases, and with rare overtime registrations. Furthermore, the magistrate noted that the witness evidence present in the trial confirmed the practice and highlighted labor law suits brought against the employer concerning the same conduct. “The defendant’s practice of not complying with the law on the appointment of his employees remains unequivocal,” he concluded.
Dissatisfied, the company appealed the TRT-4, but the judges maintained their understanding. As noted by the rapporteur of the case in the 6th District, Judge Fernando Luiz de Moura Cassal, by failing to properly control working hours, the company has caused damage to the group of employees and also to the local community of workers.
However, the rapporteur opted to limit the amount of the daily fines to R$ 10 thousand reais in view of the establishment of irregular documents, as well as the amount of compensation for collective non-pecuniary damages to R $ 100 thousand, which was won by the dissenting votes by judges Beatriz Renck and Simone Maria Nunes, also members of the Jury, who deemed the respective values of R$ 100,000 and R$ 300,000 adequate. The company appealed the decision to the Superior Labor Court (TST)./ WITH TRT-4
Source: Terra
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