A CONSULTANT for a medical recruitment agency has been awarded €11,000 after making a claim against her former employee on the basis that she was harassed because of her ethnicity.
The woman focused her case at the Workplace Relations Commission on the claim that she was asked to change her name.
The worker also alleged that she was subjected to harassment, discrimination and victimisation in the course of her employment at the recruitment agency, including persistent disrespectful insults about her heritage and culture.
The woman is of Indian descent and claims that the managing director asked her to change her name to something more Irish.
The woman began her employment at the medical recruitment agency on 3 January 2017.
After around two weeks, she claims the MD asked her to improve her knowledge of the English language and to change her accent to sound more Irish.
She stated that the MD also advised her on how to write emails to make it appear that an Irish person and not an Indian person was writing them.
She claimed that the MD asked her to adopt a shortened version of her name, stating that it sounded more Irish. She agreed reluctantly to the name change.
She also said that the MD made consistent derogatory remarks about people from the Indian sub-continent and that he ‘belittled her heritage and culture’.
On March 10 2017, the complainant was issued a termination letter whereby the MD stated that he was dissatisfied with her performance and raised concerns about her motivation.
The complainant believed that she was dismissed because of her race.
The MD denied the allegations that the woman was dismissed due to her race.
He stated that the former employee who introduced the woman was also Indian. He contended that it makes no sense for a fellow Indian to recommend the complainant to an organisation that would racially harass her.
In her conclusion, WRC adjudication officer Maire Mulcahy said that she did not uphold the complaint of harassment on the race ground or the complaint of discrimination on the grounds of race.
She did find though that the dismissal of the complainant was “an act of victimisation”.
Mulcahy said she was awarding the complainant the sum of €11,000 in “compensation which is equal to six months’ salary as redress for this breach”.
