Labor Law Alert – Union Dues

On 06/29/2018, the Brazilian Supreme Court ("STF") dismissed 20 direct challenges of unconstitutionality (ADIN n. 5794), which had been filed by various union entities, by a majority (6 votes to 3). The court declared the constitutionality of the point of Labor Reform (Law 13,467/2017), which eliminated the mandatory nature of paying union dues.

As a reminder, in short, with the advent of Labor Reform (on 11/13/2017), union dues became voluntary, and the interested party must now expressly consent to having labor dues withheld to be paid to their respective union, whether the employer or employee. This represents a new paradigm to the way the Brazilian labor union system will finance itself, which could potentially have a major impact on the union structure as a whole.