Upvote the patch and the workers can earn money

a Supreme Federal Court (STF) It already started with votingthe Direct action for unconstitutionality (ADI) 5,090which calls for replacing the reference price (TR) with an inflation indicator in a correction FGTS (termination compensation fund).

The verdict was eagerly awaited by the workers, who have flooded the judiciary with hundreds of thousands of individual and collective measures in recent years, demanding a correction of the balance of the workforce. fgts. Operations have been suspended since 2019.

Victory is that The only two votes in session were in favor of correctionand provided by Ministers Andrés Mendonca and Luis Roberto Barroso. Voting has been interrupted and will resume next Thursday, April 27.

Barroso, who is also the rapporteur of the project, said fgts It is similar to the forced savings that a worker has, but the income and liquidity (speed of withdrawal) are less than that of a savings account.

“The costs of public policy in the general interest of society cannot be imposed exclusively on workers, a group made up of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged strata of the population, without violating the right to equality.said the minister.

Since January 1991, the monetary correction index Apply to fgts is the reference rate (TR), which lags inflation and saving income.

In addition, Barroso argued that the change should not be retroactive and would only be enforced after a Supreme Court ruling, and that past losses should be resolved by the legislature or through collective bargaining with the executive.

In this scenario comes the expectation of many workers, who have filed lawsuits in court in hopes of getting FGTS-corrected values, perhaps a huge sum of money! But what are the chances of that happening?

understand the FGTS Review And how will the Supreme Court’s decision affect your pocket.

What is an FGTS review?

FGTS deposited monthly into your account shall be subject to cash correction.

This correction is for you not to lose money each month in relation to the change in inflation caused by the economy. That is, the correction helps not to reduce your purchasing power.

Since January 1991, the monetary correction index Apply to fgts is the reference rate, as mentioned. However, From 1999 onwards, the index could not keep up with inflation indicators in Brazil.

That is, every month is yours “lost” purchasing powerbecause the monetary restatement of the amounts in your FGTS was not at par with the monthly inflation of the Brazilian economy.

FGTS Review Lawsuits

ADI was proposed by the Solidarity Party and is being addressed in stf Since 2014. This is the fourth time the lawsuit has entered the Supreme Court’s agenda. The previous occasions were in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

In all of these times, there has been a rush of workers to open individual and group procedures, hoping to capitalize on a potentially positive decision.

However, it has yet to be decided whether the measure is constitutional, and whether it can be applied retroactively.

Who is entitled to review the FGTS?

According to the running procedure:

• who has or has had an official contract;
• Who has or has amounts in FGTS from January 1999.

For that last item, if you retire in, say, December 1998 and withdraw the amounts, you will not be entitled to the review.

But you are entitled if you have amounts in FGTS from January 1999, Even if you have already withdrawn the amounts after this period.

FGTS Review: Just Enter the Event to Win?

Unfortunately no! This is because the STF has not yet decided whether or not an FGTS review is possible. In this sense, the highest can give 3 types of responses to the topic under discussion:

• Review failure: TR will continue to apply and no one will be entitled to the amounts corrected by the correct index;
• Review procedures: This hypothesis according to which all persons who apply (or who have already entered) with an application for revision of FGTS amounts are entitled to receive the corrected amounts;
• Revision source with modifying effects.

Check out what could happen in STF decision odds:

If the FGTS review is denied

In this case, if you already have a running process, there is no basis for your process. that is, cIf the value of your work exceeds the $60 minimum wage, you may have to pay process costs and additional fees.

This fee is paid to an attorney Caixa Economica Federal It may represent from 10% to 20% of the claim value. Therefore, it is important to be aware of the risks involved before embarking on an FGTS credit check.

However, if you have Free Justice in the process, you won’t have to pay these amounts.

If the FGTS review is judged valid

If this is the ultimate scenario, you can file the lawsuit at any time, even after the Supreme Court ruling.

If judged to modify the effects of the FGTS revision

Among the rest, this is the decision that experts expect. If so It is likely that they will only use the correct indicator from the date of the judgment onwards, given the huge hole a retrospective review would cause in the country’s economy.

Therefore, according to the principle of equality in the Federal Constitution, it is understood that a person will have the right to rectification, regardless of whether or not a lawsuit is filed before trial.

Adjusting influences in STF resolution: what is it?

Thus, it is entirely possible that STF modulates decision effects. that it, When it is discussed when a particular decision is applicable. Ben-Hur Custa, a social security attorney at Ingrácio Advocacia, believes the FGTS review is likely only effective for fund values ​​from the date of the ruling.

“I think the values ​​will only be corrected with the correct cursor after the STF ruling. This is because, if all the values ​​of the FGTS are revised backwards from the date of the judgment, the financial impact on public coffers (since we are talking about Caixa Econômica Federal, a public company that manages the FGTS) would be enormous, almost 600 billion reais. “

Taking into account the economic situation in Brazil, it is possible for the STF ministers to adjust the effects of the decision, so that the new correction index is applied from the ruling onwards (and not backwards, as would be true).