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The Labor Court of Braga ordered the University of Minho (UMinho) to maintain the salary of a worker who joined the board within the framework of the Extraordinary Program for Regularization of Precarious Bonds in Public Administration (PREVPAP).
Through a judgment of November 23, to which Lusa had access today, the court also condemns the university to recognize the existence of an employment contract with the worker in question since she began to perform functions at the Center for Communication Studies and Society. of the Academy.
As an intern, the worker received 2,000 euros, but in January 2020, with the regularization of the bonus under PREVPAP, the university presented her with an employment contract with a monthly salary of 1,285 euros.
The worker appealed to the court, which now gives its reason, condemning UMinho to keep the 2,000 euros he earned, “without prejudice to the salary progression that he may have.”
The university will still have to pay the difference between the monthly fee now fixed and the one it has practiced in the meantime.
He was also ordered to pay Christmas and holiday allowances for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Lusa contacted the rectory of the University of Minho, specifically to find out if he will appeal the sentence, but has not yet received a response.
For the worker’s lawyer, Pedro Mendes Ferreira, the sentence was “a victory in all areas.”
“The court agreed with us in everything, it was a victory in all areas, I think justice was done,” he said.
The only difference is that the 2,000 euros that the worker earned as a trainee were liquid, because they were tax-free, and now they are illiquid.
According to Pedro Mendes Ferreira, this was “the first of many sentences that are about to come out”, with more than 100 workers at the University of Minho concerned.
The plaintiff argued that the university “seriously violated the Labor Code” by placing workers in careers or categories lower than the functions they performed.
He recalled that the Labor Code establishes that the employer is prohibited from changing the worker to a lower professional category.
Likewise, he stressed that both the Labor Code and the PREVPAP law “prohibit the employer from reducing the worker’s remuneration, constituting a very serious offense to violate such prohibition.”
For that lawyer, the contract proposals that were presented “entail a clear and evident decrease in monthly remuneration.”
Pedro Mendes Ferreira stressed that the regularization of bonds does not represent the birth of an employment relationship, so acquired rights “cannot be harmed.”
“What is required of the University of Minho is to recognize that the irregular relationship it had with the workers constitutes a true labor relationship,” he stressed.
In December 2019, in a meeting with workers covered by PREVPAP, the Dean of UMinho said that it was a “very complex” process, covering 109 cases, all very different from each other.
“Each case is different,” said Rui Vieira de Castro, admitting that there could be “some flaw” and stating that he understood that some workers felt less harmed and others more harmed.
He stressed that the academy works to “dilute the imbalances and guarantee gains in internal equity”, but also added that the university will have to “ensure its financial sustainability.”
“We are doing the best we can,” he added, recalling that UMinho “was not endowed with the adequate financial means” for PREVPAP.
According to Rui Vieira de Castro, the regularization of the marginal neighborhoods will cost 1.7 million euros, which the academy “will have to recover with its own income.”
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