Reflexões sobre a noção da figura jurídica da ocupação efectiva do trabalhador

Abstract

In a possible formulation, the labour contract is the one by which a person (the employee) provides, against payment, its activity to another person (the employer), under the authority and direction of the latter. The object of the employee's obligation is therefore a sequence of acts, an activity that occupies his time; in a first and very rough approximation, it could be said that the state of occupation of an employee is the opposite of the state of his inactivity. But not all situations of inactivity fit the legal notion of non-effective occupation: only fit in this case the situations that, cumulatively, are inherent to the employer (and arising by his determination), do not change the formal legal status of the employee (at least tendentiously), do not have specific legal treatment as autonomous institutes, and whose justification is somewhat dubious (at least).