Gender equality takes Drogaria Pacheco to court – 03/02/2024 – Panel SA

Drogaria Pacheco, which belongs to the same group as Drogaria São Paulo, obtained authorization from the Federal Court in Rio de Janeiro to stop sending information to the federal government about the campaign for equal pay and internal promotion of employees.

“The discussion involving gender equality has taken on increasingly violent contours in today’s society,” said the company in the petition. For the group, the population, in general, has difficulty understanding the legal aspects of the discussion.

Translation: since last year, companies have been obliged to comply with the rules of a decree from the Ministry of Labor to promote equal pay between men and women. To do this, corporations have to publish reports with their employees’ remuneration criteria, even on social networks.

The maximum deadline for submitting the reports expired on Thursday (29) and anyone who failed to do so would be penalized with a fine of up to 3% of the salary bill.

In the action, Drogaria Pacheco considers that there is no guarantee that the information will be kept confidential, which serves as a tool of embarrassment, public exposure and social disapproval.

“[As regras] They suggest that companies that do not adopt them, in the exact expected terms, are contrary or refractory to gender equality, which will not necessarily be the case”, says the company in the petition.

To Panel SA, the group states that it adopts initiatives for salary equity. “Currently, 64.4% of leadership positions in the company are held by women. We have policies and practices that ensure equal opportunities for men and women at all hierarchical levels,” he said in a statement.

“The action [na Justiça] was adopted solely to avoid the risk of exposing sensitive information of employees and the company’s business strategies, safeguarding the rights to privacy and data protection, business secrecy and the guarantee of free competition.”

Own inspection mechanisms

Judge Frana Elizabeth Mendes accepted Drogaria Pacheco’s request. In her decision, she considered that, to guarantee equal pay between men and women, the government has its own monitoring mechanisms, such as the e-Social database, the FGTS, the CNIS (National Register of Social Information), among others whose data is protected by confidentiality.

“It does not seem reasonable to require companies to provide all data, (…) as well as that such data be publicized including on social networks”, said the judge.

Business movement

Class associations had already been mobilizing against what they consider to be excesses of the law. In a letter to Minister Luiz Marinho (Labor), on Wednesday (28), the CNI (National Confederation of Industry) said it was concerned about the image and reputation of companies.

The entity assesses that the law disregards competition issues and important aspects for salary composition, such as productivity, length of experience, length of service, time at the company, among others.

Therefore, the confederation asked the minister to reopen the dialogue and postpone the publication of salary transparency reports.

“It is suggested that the next few months be used to carry out a pilot phase with companies, with due testing of the system and processes for analyzing possible differences, to find solutions that preserve companies and workers”, wrote Ricardo Alban, president of the entity.

At the beginning of the week, Fiemg (Federation of Industries of Minas Gerais) filed a public civil action, asking, in the Court of Belo Horizonte (MG), the suspension of the effects of the presidential decree and the ordinance of the Ministry of Labor that regulated the law of equal pay.

The federation says that it does not have the objective of questioning the law, but understands that the obligations surrounding the disclosure of salary transparency reports violate Brazilian legislation.

“The provision for the immediate completion of the questionnaire, without the possibility of additional clarifications and the notification of the company to prepare an action plan, without granting a defense period, constitute violations of the right to adversarial proceedings and full defense”, states Fiemg.

When contacted, the Ministry of Labor has not responded so far.

With Diego Felix

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