The company is doomed to charge health insurance fees in one lump sum

The First Committee of the Eighteenth District Regional Labor Court (TRT-18), in Goiás, decided to reverse the amounts for joint participation in a health care plan immediately levied by a mining company that were over two years without making the said deductions from employee pay.

According to the lawsuit, until 2017, the company regularly made deductions related to co-participation in a health plan for an employee who had been away from the company for a few years, providing services to a class union. However, between April 2017 and August 2019, the debt was canceled unilaterally and without prior notice.

Documents attached to the case file show the charge was returned in September 2019, also without warning. And more: The value of the outstanding installments was deducted at once upon the expiry of the worker’s contract.

The mineralogist said in its defense that it had changed the rules of co-participation for employees who were on leave, but claimed that the deductions corresponding to the period would be deferred until the worker returned.

However, the case rapporteur, Judge Eugenio José Rosa, noted that, in individual employment contracts, it is only legal to change the relevant terms if there is mutual consent, and even so, as long as they do not result, directly or indirectly, in Damage to the employee, under penalty of nullity of the clause in violation of this guarantee.

In addition, the rapporteur noted that the company, in addition to not demonstrating in the case file that it made such a change in the rules of joint participation, also did not prove that it had notified its employees in advance – information confirmed by a witness hearing in the case file.

Based on these conclusions, the university decided to reform the ruling rejecting chargebacks, condemning the company to needlessly return the deducted amounts from the worker. With information from TRT-18 Consulting.

0010613-19.2021.5.18.0131