The management of psychosocial risks may influence the proof of occupational illness and the interpretation of collective agreements, in light of the precedents of the Superior Labor Court and the Supreme Federal Court. The new wording of the NR-1 regulation can influence future judgments on mental illness by making the proof of risks and preventive measures more precise.
The projected effect is in the application of consolidated precedents on stability and concausality and in the interpretation of collective agreements. The better the actual work is documented, the greater the possibility of identifying what contributed to the damage and which measures were required.
New NR-1 Regulation Details
The revised chapter 1.5 of the NR-1 regulation, approved by Ordinance MTE 1,419/24 and with its validity extended by Ordinance MTE 765/25, entered into force on May 26, 2026. The management of occupational risks now expressly mentions psychosocial factors related to work and their integration with the NR-17 regulation on ergonomics.
The revision details the evaluation of working conditions and the monitoring of preventive measures. However, the implementation of the regulation remains under discussion in the Supreme Federal Court, with the suspension of the application of fines and other sanctions related to the disputed provisions extended by 90 days on September 24, 2026.
The precautionary measure has a limited object, applying only to the application of sanctions related to the disputed provisions. In individual demands, the duty to protect health provided for in article 157 of the Consolidation of Labor Laws and the premises of civil liability remain relevant.
Impact on Future Judgments
The absence of an administrative fine, in itself, does not demonstrate compliance with the employer’s duties. The relationship between working conditions and damage depends on specific proof. The evaluation must focus on the organization of work, examining conditions such as overload, incompatible demands with available resources, and violence in the work environment.
A questionnaire of symptoms, in isolation, does not reconstruct occupational exposure or replace intervention on its source. The Program for Risk Management, when required, contains an inventory and action plan. The NR-1 regulation also provides for records of the implementation of measures and their monitoring.
This set of documents can help verify which risks were identified, who was exposed, and what measures were taken. A wellness campaign provides little information about the correction of a production process that continues to impose excessive demands.
Risk, diagnosis, disability, and causal link require distinct demonstrations. The recognition of a hazard in the inventory does not prove that it produced the disease of a specific employee. Nor does the absence of a record prove the non-existence of exposure.
The expertise, articulated with other elements of the case, needs to examine the chronology of the condition, the tasks actually performed, the intensity and duration of demands, and other explanatory factors. Any functional limitation must be demonstrated according to the request made.
In subjective responsibility, the non-compliance with a duty of prevention can integrate the analysis of guilt, as long as it is related to the damaging event. In objective responsibility, it is necessary to observe the legal hypotheses and the criteria of the Supreme Federal Court‘s Theme 932, including habitual exposure to special risk, with potential harm and burden superior to that supported by the community.
Psychosocial Factors and Risk
The inclusion of psychosocial factors in the NR-1 regulation does not automatically transform all professional activities into risk activities for indemnification purposes. Concausality already offers a legal path for diseases whose production involves more than one factor.
Article 21, I, of Law 8,213/1991 admits the direct contribution of work without requiring it to be the sole cause. The identification of personal antecedents, therefore, does not close the expert analysis. It is necessary to investigate whether the work triggered or aggravated the condition and to found the relevance of this contribution.
The Theme 125 of the Superior Labor Court reinforces the importance of this investigation. For the stability provided for in article 118 of Law 8,213/1991, the thesis dispenses with absence superior to fifteen days or receipt of work-related illness aid when the causal or concausal link between the occupational disease and work is recognized after the contract is closed.
The documentation provided for in the NR-1 regulation may qualify the proof of exposure in cases reached by this understanding. The Theme 76 of the Superior Labor Court relates the quality of expertise to the calculation of the monthly pension for loss or reduction of work capacity.
In situations of concausality, the thesis establishes a reduction of up to 50% after defining the percentage of labor disability, except for express expert indication of the degree of contribution of the activity to the damage. Records of risks and preventive measures can qualify this analysis.
A generic score of a questionnaire, however, does not equal a percentage of causal contribution. The NR-1 regulation provides for access by interested workers and unions to Program for Risk Management documents. The organization controls the production of information on risks and prevention.
The difficulty in obtaining these elements can justify the application of article 818, § 1º, of the Consolidation of Labor Laws. The diverse distribution of the burden requires a grounded decision before the opening of instruction and an effective opportunity to fulfill the task, without making it impossible or excessively difficult.
The normative revision does not create an automatic inversion in every allegation of mental illness. The sufficiency of documents must be examined with the same rigor for both parties. A standardized inventory, without correspondence with the actual work, may have limited value.
A medical report that merely reproduces the patient’s narrative also does not demonstrate, by itself, the conditions of the service. The analysis requires coherence between sources and a grounded explanation of how exposure would have produced or aggravated the damage.
The impact on the Superior Labor Court will depend, to a large extent, on the instruction in the ordinary instances. The súmula 126 prohibits the re-examination of facts and evidence in a review appeal. It is up to the Regional Labor Courts to fix the premises on exposure, illness, and preventive measures.
From these facts, the Superior Labor Court will be able to examine the legal framing of business duties and the application of precedents. The quality of instruction will be decisive for the detailed normative to reach the judgments. It will also be necessary to respect the time of the facts.
For periods prior to the validity of the new wording, the analysis must consider the duties then required. Protection against work-related illness predates May 2026. However, the specific requirements introduced by the revision cannot be retroactively demanded as if they were already in effect.
Collective Agreements and Precedents
Posterior records can aid in reconstructing previous conditions, as long as their relevance to the period in question is demonstrated. Collective agreements and conventions add another plane to the discussion.
The Theme 1,046 of the Supreme Federal Court recognizes the constitutionality of negotiation that limits or waives labor rights, respected the absolutely indisputable rights, without requiring specific compensatory advantages explicitly indicated.
The application of this understanding depends on the object of the clause and the affected right. A provision on mental health must be examined for what it effectively establishes. Article 611-B, XVII, of the Consolidation of Labor Laws considers illicit the suppression or reduction of health, hygiene, and safety standards provided for in law or regulatory norms.
A clause that intended to waive the management of an occupationally required risk would find this limit. Sectoral adaptation of preventive means can favor compliance with the duty. The negotiation of these means needs to ensure compliance with applicable protection requirements.
This limit must coexist with an express reservation of the Consolidation of Labor Laws itself. The sole paragraph of article 611-B excludes rules on working hours and intervals from the classification of health, hygiene, and safety standards for the purposes of that article.
Therefore, the NR-1 regulation does not offer a basis for generically invalidating negotiated work schedules within legal limits. The validity of the clause and the prevention of concrete risks arising from its execution are questions that must be examined separately.
Collective negotiation can make prevention verifiable by disciplining worker participation in risk assessment, access to information, and criteria for reviewing goals. It can also establish procedures for investigating violence and monitoring corrective measures.
Prevention and Collective Negotiation
The preventive value of these clauses depends on their application. A participation forecast that does not result in effective consultation provides little clarity on the adequacy of working conditions. The discussions between class entities and the government in ADPF 1,316 have a distinct nature and scope from the collective agreements and conventions of the Consolidation of Labor Laws.
A potential consensual solution will need to be examined according to its content and the effects of the decision that accepts it. The definition of more objective inspection criteria is of interest to legal security. However, the existence of negotiations does not allow for the presumption of exemption from responsibility for damages already occurred.
In a hypothetical situation, an employee alleges illness after successive changes in goals. Expertise can compare records of workload with the inventory of risks and the measures provided for in the collective instrument.
Effective corrections prior to the damage are of interest to the analysis of compliance with the duty. The record of relevant exposure without a compatible response can sustain the investigation of omission. The relationship between this exposure and the illness, however, still needs to be demonstrated.
Collective negotiation gains relevance when it offers conditions to reduce exposure and verify results. The quality of this proof will allow distinguishing work-related illness from situations where the occupational link is not sustained.
