The Pro-Gender and Race Equity Program is a federal government initiative launched in 2005, coordinated by the then Special Secretariat for Women’s Policies (SPM), in partnership with the Secretariat for Policies to Promote Racial Equality (SEPPIR), UN Women and the International Labor Organization (ILO).

The goal of the Program is to disseminate new concepts in people management and organizational culture to achieve equal conditions between women and men in the workplace, also considering inequalities of race and ethnicity.

Participants are medium and large sized organizations, both public and private. The Program seeks to bring about a paradigm shift in the conception of gender and race in the labor market. By joining the Program, the organization assumes one of its founding values: the search for more egalitarian labor relations, strengthening the space for women.

The program offers organizations the possibility of public recognition, by obtaining the Pro-Gender and Race Equality Seal. It symbolizes the adoption of practices to reduce inequality between men and women, in an intersectional manner.

The Pro-Gender and Race Equity Program is structured in two axes and several dimensions.

People Management Axis

• Recruitment and Selection
• Qualification and Training;
• Career Development and Job and Career Plan (Salary and Remuneration);
• Benefits Policies; and
• Health and Safety Programs.

Organizational Culture Axis

• Mechanisms to combat the practices of inequality and discrimination of gender and race, and to combat the occurrence of moral and sexual harassment;
• Training practices in the organization’s relationship chain; and
• Internal and external institutional propaganda.

Copel has been awarded the Pro Gender and Race Equity Seal three times (2010, 2015 and 2021), thanks to projects such as the Breastfeeding Rooms for employees returning from extended maternity leave; the reduced workday for two months after returning from maternity leave; the internal norm for the use of the social name for transgender people; updating of the personnel chart, including clippings of sex, race/color and gender identity; training of the Committee on the theme of gender and race, monitoring of the designation of managers in the application for managerial positions; and dissemination of the channel for complaints of sexual harassment.

Practices at Copel:

• Creation of Breastfeeding Rooms suitable for lactating women to collect, store breast milk or breastfeed during working hours.
• Extension of paternity leave to 120 consecutive working days. Thus, employees will be able to share the care with the family in the first days after the birth of their daughter or son.
• Participation of actors of different races in the Company’s advertisements and internal communication.
• Offering an external, reliable and independent channel for denunciations of discriminatory practices.
• Promotion in the organization’s relationship chain of the discussion about the promotion of gender and race equality.
• Extended maternity leave (six months) and the opportunity for employees on leave due to pregnancy or maternity to be evaluated in the respective cycle of the Performance Management System.
• Investment in the training of women for management positions.
• Encouraging equal promotion of women and men to management positions.
• Strengthening the company’s commitment to the issue of domestic violence, with the qualification of managers and heads of sectors, also making it possible to recognize the signs of violence in the workplace.

Follow the Copel Sustainability Portal to read news about Copel’s actions and read our Integrated Reports, published annually! To learn more, access the Program’s page.