People in a de facto union will have 20 days of justified absences in the event of the death of their partner

Parliament rectified some labor standards of the Decent Work Agenda, clarifying that in the event of the death of a person living in a de facto union with the worker, there is the right to 20 days of justified absences and not five.

The statement of rectification was published in Diário da República earlier this week and comes, as he told Lusa Simão de Sant'Ana, from Abreu Advogados, "to clarify the content of several rules that, if not rectified, would raise interpretative doubts" and, ultimately, lead to «legal solutions different from those contained in the final proposal voted and approved by the Assembly of the Republic».

Among these rectifications to the Decent Work Agenda, which came into force a month ago, it includes, in addition to the number of days of justified absences to which the worker is entitled, the possibility of an instrument of collective regulation - and not just a contract collective work – to be able to set the amount of compensation due to the worker for the expenses inherent in the provision of his activity under a teleworking regime.

In the version that came into force on May 01, it was stated that «the individual employment contract and the collective employment contract must establish, when concluding the agreement for the provision of teleworking, the amount of compensation due to the worker for additional expenses».

The rule that must be taken into account, however, has a broader scope by determining that «the individual employment contract and the applicable collective labor regulation instrument must establish, when concluding the agreement for the provision of telework, the amount of compensation due to the worker for the additional expenses'.

In addition, the amended wording also points out, as Simão de Sant'Ana mentioned, «the possibility of excluding – and not just reducing – the trial period, if the duration of a professional internship with a positive evaluation, for the same activity and with different employer, occurred in the last year and lasted 90 days or more'.

Without these rectifications, admits the same lawyer, «the range of issues raised by the recent amendment to the Labor Code would grow, namely due to deficiencies in the legislative process».