Employment Law Case Update: Racism and Harassment

Racism in the workplace should not be tolerated and employers have a duty to ensure the proper action is taken when racist actions are brought to their attention.  Our Employment Law team today reviews the case of Ms Muna Abdi v Deltec International Courier Limited 2020 and a pretty unpleasant racism story. 

Ms Abdi, who is black, of Somali origin and wears a hijab, worked for the company as an Evening Operations Clerk from November 2017 until her resignation in September 2018.

In August 2018, Ms Abdi was in conversation with her co-workers and the topic of white privilege came up. This turned into a heated argument and two co-workers told Ms Abdi “the majority of crimes in England are made by black people”. Ms Abdi was very upset by their comment and what she described as a “vile discussion”.

In the course of her duties Ms Abdi logged on to a colleague’s computer. There she discovered a WhatsApp group chat which included the colleagues who had made the racial comment about crime and Ms Abdi’s line manager, Mr Hocking. In the chat, there were messages that referred to Ms Abdi as a “terrorist” and a “postbox”. There were also physical threats made against her, including “I’ll rip her head scarf off.”. Ms Abdi took a screen shot of the conversation. She complained to Mr Hocking but he did not take the complaints seriously, calling it a “he said, she said” situation.

A couple days later she logged on to the computer again and saw that the chat had been renamed to ‘ALHAMDULLAH’ and the group chat icon was a black hijab. There were also more offensive comments. Ms Abdi reported the chat and it was shown to the company CEO, Mr Cunningham. He moved her to a different workplace to minimise her contact with the employees who participated in the chat while he carried out an investigation. Ms Abdi was apparently upset by the move but did not tell Mr Cunningham as she did not want to disagree with the CEO. Mr Cunningham issued Mr Hocking and another employee with a final written warning. Two other employees who were still in their probationary period were dismissed. Mr Cunningham then apologised to Ms Abdi and told her appropriate action had been taken.

Despite Ms Abdi’s move, she continued to have negative interactions with Mr Hocking. She resigned in September 2018 and filed a claim for harassment with the Employment Tribunal (ET).

Ms Abdi succeeded in her claim of harassment. The ET found that the comment about black people committing a majority of the crimes in England and the WhatsApp discussion were unwanted conduct which related to the protected characteristic of race and had the purpose and effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating and offensive environment.

The ET also commented that it considered the company’s handling of the harassment to be “inadequate.” The WhatsApp discussion contained serious expressions of hate and threats of physical violence against Ms Abdi. These expressions were condoned by her line manager, who Ms Abdi continued to have negative interaction with. The ET remarked that the company’s inadequate handling of the allegations was something it would take into account when deciding on the remedy to be awarded. 

Ms Abdi was awarded almost £25,000 pounds, the majority of which was for injury to feelings.

This case shows how important it is for employers to adequately respond to allegations of harassment. Although it may be wise to separate an employee from the alleged harasser while an investigation is undertaken, employers should also give thought to how best to manage the working relationship between the employees once the investigation (and disciplinary process) are completed. 

If you have any questions regarding this article, you can call our Employment team today on 023 8071 7717 or email employment@warnergoodman.co.uk.

This was previously part of our weekly Employment Law Newsletter. If you would like to subscribe, please email us at events@warnergoodman.co.uk or just fill in our subscription form.

ENDS

This is for information purposes only and is no substitute for, and should not be interpreted as, legal advice.  All content was correct at the time of publishing and we cannot be held responsible for any changes that may invalidate this article.