Race Discrimination

Race relations have always been a complicated subject, however, in the current climate it’s fraught with difficulty.  The Race Relations Act 1976 is an important piece of employment legislation, which is why I want to revisit it today.

Personally, I don’t understand why anybody would want to make an employment decision by reference to the colour of a job applicant or employee.  It seems to me that the best organisations obviously recruit and promote the best candidates; it’s as simple as that. 

However, sadly, not everyone thinks like this, as the number of race discrimination claims before the employment tribunals indicates.  Although, to give the other side of the story, tribunals also have to sift through claims brought by so-called ‘professional’ claimants, whose behaviour does not help the cause of good race relations and simply has the effect of antagonising matters.

In employment law the main legal protection is contained in the Race Relations Act and its various amendments through the years.  In principle, the law is essentially the same as in the Sex Discrimination Act, which I wrote about recently.

Direct discrimination is unlawful; an example would be “I am not going to employ Michael because he is Scottish”.  Michael is treated less favourably than an English person and the reason for that treatment is his race.

Indirect racial discrimination is also unlawful.  This happens when an employer applies a requirement or condition which applies to everybody but which is more difficult for a particular racial group to comply with.

A good example of this is found in a recent case from Liverpool where the employer told the employment services that he didn’t want any job applicants from the city centre area of Liverpool (Liverpool 8).  The reason for this was that unemployed friends of the Liverpool 8 employee tended to loiter outside the employer’s shop and this put off customers.  At the time this case was heard 50% of the population of Liverpool 8 was black whereas across Merseyside as a whole, only 2% of the population was black.  Mr Hussein was refused a job because he was from Liverpool 8.  It was held that this refusal was unlawful racial discrimination.  Whilst the employer’s decision to exclude Liverpool 8 candidates was not directly discriminatory, it actually made it more difficult for a black person to get a job than a white person.

It’s worth pointing out that there is a defence to race discrimination, where the employer can show that the treatment was justified.  Looking at the Liverpool 8 case, you can see that this is difficult for an employer to argue.  I’m sure some people out there will think that wanting to prevent undesirable people loitering outside your company, is actually quite a good justification.  However, the Tribunal did not agree.

Finally, racial harassment is of course also unlawful.  This is an area where all employers need to be particularly vigilant.  No comments of a racial nature should be tolerated within the workplace.  Without wishing to sound overly politically correct, even light-hearted mutual banter should be stopped if there are racial overtones.  It would take a very brave employer to go into a Tribunal with the defence “he gave as good as he got”.  Simply speaking, to allow “banter” of a racial nature to take place creates an environment which opens the employer to a claim from any employee who takes offence, even if at the time they don’t seem to mind.

Employers would do well to remember that, as with all forms of unlawful discrimination, there is no limit on the compensation that the victim of race discrimination can be awarded.

Published 27/09/2006.