| €2,500 awarded for distress caused in course of employment |
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| Written by Rita Gillen |
| Thursday, 23 September 2010 09:21 |
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A Lithuanian national was recently awarded €2,500 in compensation from the Equality Tribunal, after showing that he suffered racial harrassment during the course of his employment. Mr. Slesoriunas claimed that he suffered from discriminatory treatment and harassment from work collegaues and his manager, while employed by Moathland Enterprises between October 2005 and August 2007. Mr. Slesoriunas submitted that Irish work colleagues would mock his accented English and when he failed to understand a work task, they would tell him to “Go back to Lithuania”. Mr. Slesoriunas also submitted that he was frequently humiliated at work, as colleagues would throw his work tools around and would then laugh at him when he attempted to retrieve them. Mr. Slesoriunas acknowledged that while he was not the only foreign employee working at Moathland, he was the only Lithuanian in the workforce, as there were a number of Polish workers employed in Moathland at the time. He alleged that he was “picked on” more than the other foreign workers as he did not have the protection of safety in numbers. While the Equality Officer, Tara Coogan, found that his claims of discriminatory treatment were unsupported by evidence, she did find that Mr. Slesoriunas had been racially harrassed. Ms. Coogan found that the respondent company had made no attempt to integrate their workforce nor did they provide a resolution to the problem, as mangement were involved in the harrassment as well and thus, she awarded him €2,500 for the distress caused. |
