Photo credit: Irish Mirror
A worker has won 5,000 euros over a racial comment by his supervisor.
The RTE reports that the man accused his supervisor of making “hateful” comments about immigrants in a works canteen.
The supervisor allegedly said, “Now, they’re coming over here, and they’re mixing with us. That’s the problem.”
The worker claimed as part of a complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1998 by the worker against an unidentified manufacturer of medical devices. The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) anonymised its decision because it overlapped with matters under adjudication behind closed doors in a further Industrial Relations Act claim.
The worker explained that while he and his colleagues were having breakfast in the work canteen on the morning of 19 July 2023, they were having a conversation about immigration and refugees and their place in the country.
He claimed his team leader stated, “What it used to be was that the men from these countries would come over here and get jobs and send the money back to their families. Now they’re coming over here and mixing with us. That’s the problem.”
The worker called it a “malicious and hateful comment regarding immigrants,” and it was “a devastating blow” to him as a person from a mixed-race background. He told the tribunal that he was an Irish citizen of mixed-race origin, as his father was of African descent.
