Changes in the brazilian labor market: the role of collective agreements in face of state regulation

Abstract

The law, as a norm of state origin, still retains its supremacy over other formal sources of law, such as collective instruments arising from negotiating power, or collective negotiation.

However, from the point of view of efficiency and contemporaneity, it does not always prove to be adequate and efficient in view of the urgency demanded by the events occurring in the daily lives of companies and their workers. In this sense, the negotiation path, due to its agility and speed, has proven to be more suitable for facing crisis situations or situations that, in some way, require a prompt response.

This study analyzes the role of collective agreements and their importance concerning the regulation of working conditions when compared to state norms, given the profound and rapid changes that affect the entire planet and, in particular, labor relations, especially due to two aspects: the greater speed and agility in the process of drafting the collective instrument and the fact that the collective agreement takes into account the specificities of the sector of economic activity that it intends to regulate, unlike the law, which has a generalizing nature.

It is based on the analysis of collective agreements and conventions signed during the coronavirus pandemic, which regulated certain working conditions in the face of the absence of regulation or late regulation by the State.

Through the descriptive-analytical method, and based on these instruments, it was observed that the convention is better able to regulate working conditions not only in crisis situations but also in those that require greater speed, such as those resulting from new technologies and new forms of hiring workers. In times of crisis, such as the one that took place in Brazil and around the world in the face of Covid-19, collective instruments established rules and procedures to be applied in the period long before the promulgation of legal instruments that defined paths.

Moreover, collective bargaining, in addition to being a fundamental right inscribed in the Constitution, is an instrument of democracy insofar as it honors the will of the social actors involved in labor relations.

Good negotiations require strong and active unions. A union reform is urgently needed so that union rights are actually guaranteed and unions can truly represent the will their members.