A Ralph Lauren stylist has won an employment tribunal claim for direct race discrimination and race-related harassment after her manager made comments referring to United Colors of Benetton and the United Nations.
Miss Grey, who is of black Caribbean and white English heritage, began work as a part-time sales associate stylist at Ralph Lauren’s flagship store on Sloane Square, London, in 2015.
In July 2019, Nathan Rickerby was appointed the store’s manager by RL Retail Services. A change in terms and conditions meant the claimant was required to work any two days a week, except Tuesdays and Thursdays.
When Grey emailed Rickerby to say she was only able to work weekends, something her previous manager had accommodated, he asked her to submit a request under the company’s flexible working policy. She refused because she was concerned that if she made this application she would be tied to the same working pattern for 12 months.
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After a seven-week sickness absence and the rostering issues, the tribunal found that Rickerby and Grey’s working relationship had become “fraught and freighted with mutual distrust”.
Rickerby had grown frustrated and impatient with the claimant because she had been absent and late, had failed to follow sickness and lateness reporting procedures and, in seeking to change her working pattern, had refused to engage with the flexible working policy. Meanwhile, the claimant felt she was being singled out and forced out.
On 2 November 2019, when Grey was trying to log in to a computer to complete an online training course, it was alleged that Rickerby said to the claimant “you’re the European Union aren’t you, your being mixed race and all”, “you’re the United Nations” and “you’re the United Colors of Benetton”.
When the claimant was interviewed during a subsequent grievance investigation, she explained: “My mum’s Jamaican, that’s obviously what he’s referring to. You probably haven’t been in that situation where you’ve encountered racial abuse, but I have and it’s scary.”
Rickerby emphatically denied the allegations, but the tribunal preferred the claimant’s evidence as it found he had been dishonest to the claimant, the HR team and the grievance investigator, and that he included evidence in his witness statement that he knew was untrue.
In her grievance, Grey said: “The incidents that took place on that day have had a serious impact on my life and my mental health. I feel traumatised by it, no matter how hard I have tried I cannot get over it.”
In his decision, Employment Judge Khan said: “The language that we have found Mr Rickerby used was patently related to the claimant’s mixed heritage. Because of the nature of this language, we conclude that it had the purpose of creating the environment and of violating her dignity proscribed by section 26 of the Equality Act… We also take account of the fact that Mr Rickerby was not another colleague or peer of the claimant’s but was the store manager and in a position of power and authority over the claimant.”
The tribunal found that the comments amounted to direct race discrimination, although various other complaints against RL Retail Services were not upheld.
A remedy hearing to decide compensation takes place at a later date.
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