Pejotização ou pseudoempreendedorismo

Abstract

The number of legal entities registered in recent years has grown significantly, resulting from various measures aimed at formalizing small businesses, with simplified bookkeeping and taxation, notably the creation of the MEI (Individual Microentrepreneur). However, how many of these new entrepreneurs are in fact entrepreneurs? This question becomes pertinent given the growing use of what is known as pejotization (self-employment), a phenomenon in which employees find themselves, at the behest of their employers, forced to form a legal entity to maintain their existing employment relationship. This paper explores the evolution, or devolution, of the traditional employment relationship toward outsourcing, a result of the production model known as Toyotism which emerged in Japan after World War II. The paper describes the evolution of outsourcing in Brazil, from its adoption in specific segments to its permission for ancillary activities within a business, as per Summary 331 of the Superior Labor Court, to the current jurisprudence, which permits the outsourcing of all company activities. From this, outsourcing has been overtaken by pejotization (personal employment), the result of fraud concealing the de facto relationship of subordinate employment, distinct from employment by a legal entity. The article analyses how the Supreme Court's jurisprudence, following the ruling on ADPF (Action Against a Violation of a Constitutional Fundamental Right) 324 and the issuance of General Repercussion Topic 725, has been permissive of fraud in employment relationships. This could be further expanded if General Repercussion Topic 1389 is approved, which seeks to transfer the prosecution of fraud in employment relationships to the Common Courts. Based on the concept of entrepreneur, the article develops the concept of pseudo-entrepreneur, as someone who, while formally an entrepreneur, lacks the will to undertake, much less control over the supposed enterprise, and is, in fact, a subordinate worker. Finally, the article discusses the effects that the increasing replacement of employees by pseudo-entrepreneurs can have not only on workers but on society in general