Racial Harrasment

Following the awful events in London that led to the deaths of many innocent people and the disruption of our capital city, it might be timely to look at our race discrimination laws.

All right thinking people need to resist the temptation caused by anger, frustration and grief to treat perfectly innocent people badly or with suspicion simply because of the colour of their skin.

Employers in particular need to be aware of the moral and legal need to protect their employees who are from ethnic minorities from mistreatment at the hands of other employees.

Employers have a duty of care to all their workers, this extends to doing all they can to protect them from being harassed.

Harassment takes place when because of someone’s racial, ethnic or national origins, another person engages in unwanted conduct that has the purpose or effect of violating that other person’s dignity or it creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or an offensive environment for them.

This typically unhelpful definition needs a bit of interpretation.

If one worker physically assaults another because he is Asian that will be an extreme form of harassment.

However, harassment need not take the form of physical abuse. Since July, there have been reports of Asians being called “Taliban” and taunted with “Have you left your rucksack at home today?” If this were to happen in the workplace, what should employers do about it?

There may be a tendency to respond with “sticks and stones” and do nothing. This can be very expensive in an Employment Tribunal claim.

Employers should make sure that their managers and supervisors do not ignore harassment because they simply do not know how to deal with it.

The short but unhelpful answer in dealing with an employee who is harassing another is that the punishment should fit the crime.

If somebody hits another employee he or she should in my view be sacked.

If an employee made the rucksack comment today to an Asian worker I would probably give him a written warning after following a proper disciplinary procedure. He and his colleagues need to know that if you pick on minorities or indeed any vulnerable employee your job is at risk. By adopting a no tolerance policy employers will reduce their exposure to expensive litigation.

The Commission for Racial Equality have issued a guidance to employers following 7 July. Key parts of this are the need to remind workers of the Company’s equal opportunities and anti harassment policies, make it clear that harassment will not be tolerated, tell workers how they can complain if they are subjected to harassment and make sure managers are trained in how to respond to a complaint.

Employers would do well to note that there is no limit on what an Employment Tribunal can award a victim of racial discrimination and employers are generally held responsible for the behaviour of their employees.

Published 27/09/2006.