Atheist forced to pray Our Father wins compensation of R$ 10 thousand

The court ordered a dental products company in Minas Gerais to pay R$10,000 in compensation for moral damages to a former employee for forcing her to participate in the Our Father’s prayer daily before the start of the workday.

The employer filed an appeal to take the case to the TST (Superior Labor Court), the so-called review appeal. The request, which has not yet been analyzed, needs to be admitted by a judge before going to the Superior Labor Court.

The worker sued the company in 2020 after resigning. In the lawsuit, she claims that the moral harassment practiced by a director was what led her to resign after just over three years of work.

For the Labor Court in Minas Gerais, she proved that she was a victim of religious discrimination and that she suffered attacks when she was pregnant and also because of her physical characteristics. At a time when the worker wore her hair braided, this director, according to the lawsuit, pulled the worker’s braids and suggested that she might have lice.

The former employee told the court that she is an atheist. Every day, before work began, the director gathered the approximately 50 employees for prayer. In the action, she says that she felt embarrassed and even arrived 10 minutes later at the company to avoid the Our Father’s moment.

This delay, according to her, was reprimanded by the director, who considered the refusal to be absurd. She also threatened to reduce the commissions of the worker, who was a bidding assistant.

The worker also pointed out, in the action, other conduct that she considered discriminatory, such as the director’s reactions to the former employee’s absences during pregnancy, which was considered risky.

These removals, according to her, were based on medical certificates and reports, but, even so, the director reacted with screams and curses. “Pregnancy is not a disease” and “pregnancy is not a way of life” were some of them, according to the lawsuit.

For substitute labor judge Priscila Rajao Cotta Pacheco, from the 16th Labor Court of Belo Horizonte, the director’s conduct was a “violation of several individual rights and guarantees such as freedom of belief, racism, honor, image, right of action, in addition to of personal data breach”.

The decision of the first instance is of October of last year. The company (the lawsuit cites a second company, which is from the same economic group as the one that employed the worker) appealed to the TRT-3 (Regional Labor Court of the 3rd Region). The judges of the 11th Panel fully upheld the conviction.

In addition to compensation for moral damages, the worker will also receive overtime, 30 minutes of break during workdays and the incorporation of a salary difference of R$ 900, which she received on the outside. The former employer will also have to collect the FGTS (Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Serviço) and other funds, such as 13th and vacation, calculated on the updated salary.