MPT issues technical note with 17 recommendations for the home office

With the massive adoption of remote work due to the isolation imposed by the advance of Covid-19, the Public Ministry of Labor has announced that it will increase the control of the conditions of the workers who will remain in this regime.

To this end, the institution published a technical note with 17 guidelines on distance work addressed to companies, unions and public administration bodies. The MPT guidelines go beyond the requirements of the labor reform and seek to detail issues such as the limitation of working hours and the preservation of the worker’s family privacy.

In the text, the MPT guides employers to respect contractual travel in the form of teleworking and virtual platforms and advocates measures to guarantee legal breaches and the right to disconnect.

The document was prepared by the MPT Covid-19 and Nanotechnology working groups.

Main points

• Additive

  According to the MPT, the provision of services by teleworking must be included in an “additive written employment contract, which specifically deals with the duration of the contract, the responsibility and the infrastructure of remote work, as well as the reimbursement of related expenses” . to work performed by the employee “

• Ergonomics

  Employers must respect ergonomic parameters related to physical (such as furniture) and cognitive (design of online work platforms) aspects. There must be reimbursement for the goods necessary to meet the parameters in question.

• Disconnect

  Models of “digital etiquette” must be adopted to guide the team in the realization of virtual demand times, guaranteeing legal rest and the right to disconnect, as well as measures to avoid systematic harassment in the work environment.

• Technology

  Technological support, technical guidance and training should be offered to workers.

Click here to read the full technical note

Repercussion
For Camilo Onoda Caldas, lawyer in the labor area and partner of Gomes, Almeida & Caldas, A The note serves as an alert for companies, who need to understand that teleworking, which is widely used at the time of the pandemic, requires special care, especially for companies to decide to continue with this modality in the future, hypotheses that it is already being considered viable by many. . “There are still the responsibilities derived from the fault ‘in vigilando’, that is to say, the company must understand that, even from a distance, it can be held responsible for events that arise from its lack of vigilance over what its employee is doing ”.

Second Ana Paula Pereira do Vale, a labor lawyer partner of Pereira do Vale Advogados, the practice of teleworking has existed for several years and came to have an express provision in the CLT with the 2017 reform. One of the points highlighted in this note, according to the lawyer, is the institution of a digital label model. “It aims to guide employees on the right to disconnect, so that technology and communication equipment do not interfere with the workers’ rest period.”