The first results of new rules of the National Council of Justice (CNJ) that seek to reduce labor litigation, should begin to be known after April. The resolution, published in October 2024, provides that the agreement between employer and employee in termination of the contract, if approved by the Labor Court, is given as a final discharge. Thus, the entry of labor complaint about the terms of the agreement in the future is prohibited.
In the first six months since the publication, the standard applies to negotiations over 40 minimum wages, an average approximate value of the agreements approved by the Labor Court in 2023. The idea is to evaluate the impact of the measure, as well as the possibility of expansion to other cases.
The amount of lawsuits pending in the Labor Court, which was about 5.5 million in 2017, fell to 4.5 million in 2019, calculates the CNJ. But it went up after that, reaching 5.4 million in 2023.
“Labor litigation is a factor in inhibition of investment and contributes to the Brazil cost,” says Minister Luís Roberto Barroso, president of the National Council of Justice (CNJ) and the Supreme Court (STF). “Without sacrifice of the legitimate rights of workers, the resolution prevents abuse in the filing of labor complaints.” Barroso was the one who presented the proposal.
The CNJ standard considers that the agreement to be taken to approval may result from direct negotiation between the parties or pre-procedural mediation. It will be up to the Labor Judge to verify the legality and reasonableness of the agreement at the time of its approval.
According to the CNJ, the approval of the agreements depends on the spontaneous provocation of the interested parties or their procedural substitutes legitimized to the competent judicial bodies, including the Judicial Centers of Consensual Methods of Dispute Solution (Cejusc-JT), in accordance with the Resolutions issued by the Superior Council of Labor Justice (CSJT).
