Portugal continues to innovate in its projects and ideas to improve workers’ daily lives. Since February this year, the country has been taking measures that are now being gradually approved.
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This Monday, May 1st, when Labor Day is celebrated, a new project under the Decent Work Agenda came into force. From now on workers in Portugal can sign a medical certificate without having to consult a professional or a health center.
The news doesn’t even seem to be true, but believe me, it is! Now the Portuguese can get sick leave through the National Health Service (SNS) 24 . However, the “freedom” must be used wisely, as the medical document can only be requested twice a year and at most each certificate is valid for up to three days.
According to the Portuguese government, the project aims to avoid overloading the country’s national health service. And to have access to the selfdeclared certificate, the Portuguese do not even have to pay.
This is because the government confirms that the document will not cost the state much less the employer. Therefore, workers wishing to request the selfdeclared certificate must access the SNS 24 website and follow the stepbystep instructions provided by the platform organizers.
Further actions of the “Agenda for Decent Work”
In addition, many other initiatives are coming into force in Portugal, all related to the “Decent Work Agenda”. Some of these are the expansion of telework, the increase in parental leave and a project to test the fourday week, which is still in its infancy.
Here it is important to highlight that the fourday week is already a reality in other countries such as Spain, Belgium, Ireland, the US and the UK, where the new method has led to significant improvements in working time.
In this model, the worker has a weekly workload of 32 hours, which corresponds to four days of 8 hours each.
But what about you, what do you think of this message? Well, Brazil could take inspiration from these new projects from Portugal, right?