Equality, diversity and human rights
A series of inappropriate comments about race by blue-collar workers, not necessarily directed at the claimant, were harassment, holds the employment tribunal.
Tori O'Neil, associate, and Judith Harris, legal director, at Addleshaw Goddard detail the latest rulings.
Discrimination can occur even when a comment is in writing and discovered by an employee a long time after the comment was written down, as this case illustrates.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that the employment tribunal was correct to reject a claim of race discrimination under the Race Relations Act 1976 (RRA) against an employer that failed to take action to prevent third-party harassment.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that an employer discriminated against a gay employee when it implemented a re-positioning policy, for a pub, that discriminated against gay customers.
In Shackletons Garden Centre Ltd v Lowe EAT/0161/10, the EAT held that an employment tribunal had insufficient evidence for its finding that an employee returning from maternity leave suffered indirect sex discrimination when her employer required her to work weekend shifts on the same basis as the other sales staff.
In this case, an employment tribunal found that a gay employee was harassed at a workplace event that he could not opt out of and that lent itself to banter of a sexual nature that could easily offend.
The industrial tribunal in Northern Ireland has awarded over £52,000 for sex and race discrimination after an employer ignored complaints from a Polish female worker that she was being subjected to serious sexual and racial harassment in the factory in which she worked.
In Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v Beck EAT/0141/10, the EAT held that the employment tribunal was entitled to find that, notwithstanding the inherently unlikely nature of an age discrimination claim on the facts, the employer's deliberate use of the word "younger" in a person specification, contrary to expert advice, was sufficient to shift the burden of proof to the employer.
In Aitken v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis EAT/0226/09, the EAT held that, in assessing whether or not a police officer who had displayed violent tendencies had been discriminated against, the employment tribunal was entitled to have regard to the need for a police officer not to appear to present a danger to colleagues or the public.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to equality, diversity and human rights.