‘Warn to lower hair volume’: Labor Justice has more than 22 thousand actions of racism

The racism faced by employees in their workplaces has led to at least 22,511 lawsuits in the Labor Courts throughout Brazil, since 2014, between cases that have already ended and those in progress.

The survey carried out by the jurimetry company Datalawyer points to a growth, year after year, in the volume of labor lawsuits that cite, in their initial petitions, terms such as racism, racial injury, racial discrimination or racial prejudice.

In the Labor Court, the request made by those who were the target of racism is compensation for moral damage. Altogether, these more than 22,000 shares have already moved R$4.34 billion.

The amount does not only refer to indemnities, since, as in other labor claims, the same process may include more claims, such as payment for overtime or recognition of employment.

There are, however, lawsuits that deal only with moral damage caused by prejudice, as in the lawsuit filed by a worker against an educational foundation in Rio de Janeiro.

In the process, she said she was approached by an inspector in the bathroom, who had a message from a superior. ”Tell that one over there to lower the volume of her hair to go back to work tomorrow”, said the employee in the action.

She also said that this inspector laughed at her own warning and later confirmed that it was a request to “comb her hair.”

The approach was in 2016, when the complainant was a young apprentice at this foundation. A colleague who was also in the bathroom confirmed to the Labor Court what the employee said and added that she seemed to have been embarrassed.

The emissary of the message confirmed what she said, according to the sentence report, but said that “she only made a comment, she had no intention of embarrassing [a trabalhadora]🇧🇷

For labor judge Dalva Macedo, from the 70th Labor Court of Rio de Janeiro, the witnesses heard and the employee’s report proved that the institution’s employee acted to “embarrass the
claimant, underage apprentice, with prejudiced offense and racist connotation.”

“There is no doubt that the employee who is approached for a reason unrelated to work, sees herself
cornered in the work environment, apprehensive and afraid of suffering reprisals from the employer. In addition, the disrespectful connotation linked to an Afro-descendant characteristic, aggravates the situation of the defendant”, wrote the judge, in the sentence.

The victim received R$ 30,000 in compensation for moral damages. The action, started in 2017, ended in 2020.

This was also the amount received by an employee in São Paulo who reported having been repeatedly offended by the janitor of the building where he worked. He was a doorman and, as he said in the action, the man referred to him as “black bastard”, “gay” and “monkey” to co-workers and residents of the residential.

The Labor Court of Cajamar accepted the request and determined that the moral damage would cost R$ 30,000 to the company that provided labor (and which was the employer of the doorman and janitor), but the TRT-2 (Regional Labor Court of the 2nd Region) reduced the financial compensation to R$ 5,000.

At the TST (Superior Labor Court), however, the ministers of the 2nd Panel decided to cancel the reduction and the compensation was R$ 30 thousand.

For the rapporteur of the case in the superior court, Minister Maria Helena Mallmann, the reports of how the janitor referred to the employee are evidence of the “seriousness of the aggression against the employee’s honor, which was affected in sensitive aspects of his personality.”

“Thus, in view of the vulnerable position of the worker in the employment dynamics, the racist and discriminatory content of the offenses uttered, and the reiteration and publicization of the aggressions”, wrote the rapporteur, “it is not considered reasonable to set the indemnity quantum in BRL 5,000”.

The state of São Paulo is, according to Datalawyer’s analysis, the one with the highest number of active cases currently. There are 3,754 actions still in progress in the two courts that serve employees in the region.

In second place is Rio Grande do Sul, with 1,238 actions that cite racism, racial prejudice, racial discrimination and rational insult in the initial requests.

Data from the jurimetry tool show how the inclusion of these terms has increased each year. In 2018, 1,291 lawsuits dealt with issues related to racism in labor lawsuits. In 2022, from January to November 18, there are 3,328 cases.

There is also growth compared to last year. In the first half of 2021, 1,793 cited these issues. In the same period this year, there were 2,042.

For the Labor Court, in addition to direct attacks on the worker’s honor, such as name calling and embarrassment, racism can also appear in the lack of diversity. In 2020, a large network of laboratories was ordered to indemnify an employee by R$ 10,000 for failing to include black people in their training guide.

This handbook set standards for clothing, makeup, and hair. However, he did not consider black skin and curly hair. The employee said in the action that she asked to keep her black power loose, as colleagues who had short hair did, but her request was denied.