Depressed and exhausted, banker sues Bradesco and receives R$ 1.2 million

A banker from Minas Gerais has just received R$ 1.2 million from Bradesco for having developed severe depression and burnout resulting from the daily pressure to achieve goals and results.

The amount includes compensation of R$50,000 for moral damages, a pension and wages that he did not receive during the period in which he was not authorized by the company’s doctor to return to work, but was denied sick pay – the so-called limbo. social security, when the professional is without the salary and without the benefit of the INSS (National Institute of Social Security).

In the lawsuit he filed against the bank in the Labor Court, the former employee said that he was charged daily at meetings and conferences for meeting goals that included selling products to customers.

Often, as he reported in the lawsuit, these demands were accompanied by shouts and slaps on the table. Once, he said, he was called illiterate by a superior.

Sought by the report, Bradesco said it will not comment.

An employee of the extinct Bamerindus since he was 14 years old, the bank clerk is now 50 years old and started accumulating periods of absence from work in 2016, seven years after his promotion to the position of manager, and since 2018 he has not resumed his role.

He is currently retired due to disability by the INSS – the benefit was granted in court in April 2021.

In addition to the reports made by the worker in the action, the Labor Court heard other bank employees from the same agency, who spoke of similar situations, of daily charges, shouting and exposure of employees in a way considered vexatious and humiliating in front of customers and colleagues.

For the judge summoned Adriana Goulart de Sena Orsini, rapporteur of the case at TRT-3 (Regional Labor Court of the 3rd Region), the set of evidence (depositions, reports and medical reports) allows us to affirm that the working conditions worsened the situation of bank health.

“[Ao bancário] a high standard of responsibility was imposed, both for the role of manager and for the excessive collection of goals, in addition to extended working hours”, he wrote, in the report, “it was possible to evaluate the
how much the working conditions may have interfered with the claimant’s mental health.”

In the TRT-3, compensation for moral damages was increased from R$ 20 thousand, the amount defined by the 3rd Labor Court of Pouso Alegre, to R$ 50 thousand.

Lawyer Lariane Del Vecchio, from the Aith, Badari and Luchin office, who represented the worker, says that, in the process, it was important to demonstrate how, until the promotion of the position, he did not manifest any inconvenience and was seen by colleagues and subordinates as a calm and willing person.

For the worker’s defense, the bank not only ignored his psychiatric condition, but ended up playing an active role in the worsening.

When he was on his second period of sick leave, the bank clerk was approached by a superior. According to the lawyer, this boss asked him to return to work and promised that he would be transferred, which never happened.

“Today he cannot pass in front of the bank. He lives in constant treatment. So it is a situation that has affected his physical integrity, in addition to his psychological one”, he says.

The pension requested by the worker’s defense was what guaranteed him the payment of over R$ 1 million. The bank had to pay the monthly differences between the benefit paid by the INSS and the value of his last salary, calculated until he turns 73 (the average life expectancy, according to the IBGE).

“The pension is necessary because he has had his ability to work reduced. He won’t have overtime, he won’t move up or have other chances of promotion.”

For the Labor Court, Bradesco failed to provide adequate working conditions to the employee.

On January 1st of this year, the syndrome gained a new and more detailed description in the ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases). From a health condition, it is now described as an occupational phenomenon, in the index of “problems associated with being employed or unemployed”.