A proposal is underway to amend Article 254 of the Labor Code, addressing the proof of justified absences. The proposed change seeks to categorize the “presentation to the employer of a medical certificate or self-declaration of illness with fraudulent intent” as a “false statement for just cause of dismissal.”
Currently, only the “presentation to the employer of a medical certificate with fraudulent intent constitutes a false statement for just cause of dismissal.” The objective is now to extend this to include self-declarations of illness issued via the SNS 24 line.
This measure was introduced as part of the Agenda for Decent Work, which took effect on May 1, 2023, by the government of António Costa. It allows individuals to request a short-term illness self-declaration through SNS 24.
These authorizations cannot exceed three consecutive days and are limited to two uses per year, without requiring the employer to pay compensation.
The employer can verify the authenticity of these illness self-declarations. For this purpose, the worker must provide the employer with the access code assigned to the illness self-declaration upon its issuance.
“Subsequently, through the SNS 24 Portal page, it is possible to verify the authenticity of the self-declaration,” explains the SNS 24 portal.
On Thursday, the government approved in the Council of Ministers a preliminary draft of a “profound reform” of labor legislation, which will be negotiated with social partners and includes revising “more than a hundred articles of the Labor Code.”
The reform, termed ‘Trabalho XXI,’ aims to make labor regimes more flexible “which are very rigid,” to increase “the competitiveness of the economy and promote business productivity,” according to the Minister of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security, in a press conference following the Council of Ministers.
