Judge orders reduced journey of mother of child with disabilities

by

A public health worker from São José do Cerrito, in the interior of Santa Catarina, obtained a provisional decision in the Labor Court to reduce her workload, so that she can monitor her son’s medical treatment.

In the decision, Judge Andrea Cristina de Souza Haus Waldrigues, from the 3rd Labor Court of Lajes (SC), used a protocol launched by the CNJ (National Council of Justice) in 2021 that provides for a series of parameters so that judicial decisions are also instruments to reduce inequalities between men and women.

The servant administratively asked to have the workday reduced from 40 hours to 30 hours a week, ending the working day at 1 pm. According to the report presented in the writ of mandamus, her son has a type of cerebral palsy that makes him dependent on aid for all daily activities.

The municipality denied the request because it understood that the labor legislation does not provide for this type of right, nor does the law that protects people with disabilities. In addition, the city government stated that it could not assume new expenses, since the reduction of the employee’s hours would leave a space in the scale – she works at a health post.

The impediment, said the municipal administration, comes from complementary law 173, of the federative pact, through which the federal government sent resources to governments through a commitment not to increase personnel expenses.

For the judge, the vetoes provided for in the federative pact do not exempt the municipality from complying with the determination, which may replace the servant with the relocation of personnel or the readjustment of the opening hours.

“Pregnant and lactating workers (…) because they are part of a model of rules and work routines established from the male paradigm, designed for the standards of the ‘average man’, [as mulheres] end up being victims of discrimination resulting from this model that does not accept them”, says an excerpt from the document, highlighted by the judge in the decision.

Haus Waldrigues states that the analysis of the case “from a gender perspective, behold, it is about a woman, a maid, a mother, and whose child demands constant care due to a serious health problem” is more than current. In another excerpt included by the judge, the arrangement of work relations is considered sexist and designed from male needs.

“The search for women and other minorities, considering the different intersectionalities, to maintain themselves in a job market that does not welcome them, provides no less perverse and excluding discriminatory practices. The same prejudices, the same myths and the same beliefs rooted in the social imagination, intensifying the inequalities that, so repeated, become invisible and imperceptible, reinforcing the inferiority of these groups in the pyramid”, wrote the magistrate, reproducing an excerpt from the CNJ protocol.

The document cited by her to grant the reduction of working hours is an extensive protocol –it has 132 pages– produced in a working group created to collaborate with policies to combat violence against women and also to encourage female participation in the Judiciary.

In the injunction, the magistrate also considered the right to continuous improvement in the living conditions of people with disabilities – the guarantee is provided for in the convention on the rights of people with disabilities.

The Municipality of São José do Cerrito and the lawyer who represented it in the process were contacted, but did not respond until the publication of this text. The municipality can appeal the injunction.

.

You May Also Like

Recommended for you