Former employee accuses Mundial supermarket of racism – 05/11/2023 – Market

A former employee accuses Mundial, one of the largest supermarket groups in Rio de Janeiro, of having fired her for not accepting her black power hairstyle.

“Several times I was approached by superiors with discriminatory speeches, in the intention that I should straighten, cut or tie my hair, which, according to them, would be dry and ugly”, she tells the Sheet Miliane Napoleão Eduardo, 34, now a nanny.

The complaint ended up at the 55th Labor Court in Rio. Lawyer Anna Carolina Vieira Côrtes asks for R$ 51,750 in compensation.

Lawyers defending the network say the reported facts are “totally untrue”. They also claim that Miliane would have the “burden of proof”, but she would not have shown any evidence to corroborate the accusations.

The labor action proposes BRL 40,000 in moral damages for considering that Miliane suffered “discriminatory dismissal” and had offended the “right of personality”, when she was persecuted by the bosses.

Her lawyer, who provides free legal assistance, also demands the payment of legal fees and cites moral and material damages because, according to the piece, someone broke into the closet where the professional kept personal belongings and stole R$ 280, which earned her a record of occurrence in the Civil Police in 2019. The company would have been silent.

Miliane was hired in 2018 as a packer for a World Cup unit in Botafogo (south zone of Rio de Janeiro). She earned BRL 1,140 for the role. In July 2020 came the resignation.

According to the former employee, the requirement that she tie her hair up was not repeated with “co-workers who had straight and long hair”.

At one point, Miliane presented a medical certificate, attached to the file, saying that she could not tie her hair back because it gave her a headache. “Episodic migraine with aura” for “mechanical allodynia” in medical vocabulary. That is, accentuated sensitivity in the scalp.

It was dismissed the following month.

Miliane says that, while she was still working at the market, she questioned superiors about the order to keep her hair tied up. “Then a persecution began against me, for not silently accepting racist statements.”

“In the same store there were employees with longer hair than mine and who could work quietly”, he says. He says he questioned what was wrong with his look and was told by a superior that he “just took orders”. The man would not have mentioned who this supposed orientation came from.

“From then on, my work days only got worse, as I started to work under pressure and unmotivated because I was always going through the same lines, which ended my psychological state.”

The defense of the World Cup told the Justice that Miliane “did not add any supporting document to her mere allegations” and “nor could she, since they are totally fallacious”.

It also says that all other employees who work at the front of the store, including packers, cashiers and inspectors, are instructed to work with their hair tied up in a net. The accessory, he continues, is provided by the employer, and its use is an internal norm “intended for all employees, regardless of the type of hair (straight, wavy, curly or kinky)”.

“It falls to the ground”, therefore, any “racial imprint” in the dismissal, according to the World Cup lawyers. They say that the requested hairstyle would not be a purely aesthetic issue, but also a hygienic one.

The piece also maintains that, after the employee showed the medical report on migraine, the company instructed her to “make a loose bun that would not squeeze her head” and never asked her to cut her hair.

Finally, it highlights the Covid-19 pandemic. At first, some experts warned that hair strands could be a transmission vector for the virus.

Miliane says she felt discriminated against since the beginning of her role in 2018. The health crisis began four months before she was fired.

Through its defenders, Mundial claims that the former employee “had a delicate disciplinary history”. She would arrive late and maintain “unethical conduct at work, as she had the habit of speaking badly about the coordinators to the other co-workers, in order to influence them in a negative way”.

Regarding the alleged theft of BRL 280 in 2019, the company says that Miliane did not prove that she had this amount stored or that the locker provided to her by the company was broken into.

The report spoke with two former colleagues of Miliane, and both confirm the version that she was the target of persecution by bosses.

One professional says that the market allowed female employees to keep the strands loose as long as they did not exceed shoulder height. This was Miliane’s case, but as hers was bulky, she was ordered to leave them inside the hammock.

The Labor Court has already held a hearing on the case, online, and in June it will hold a new one, this time in person.

Both sides, prosecution and defense, say they will bring witnesses on their behalf.

The World Cup also manifested itself through its press office. In a note, he stated that he “does not condone any act of discrimination and reinforces his commitment to inclusion and diversity”.

The case in question, says the network, “is already in court and has been treated and followed up by legal means, with the Justice”.