Claimant v Bradford Management Services LLP and Debarred, Mr Azeem Akhtar — 2021

Mr Colin Sorby worked as a production operative for Bradford Management Services LLP on a zero-hours contract. The tribunal found he was white British, that Mr Azeem Akhtar was his supervisor, and that the respondent had an equal opportunities policy but no evidence of equality and diversity training or monitoring. It preferred the claimant's account of the 16 October 2019 incident, when Mr Akhtar told him this was an Asian company and he should work for an English company, and of the 5 November 2019 incident, when Mr Silva relayed remarks said to have come from Mr Akhtar that the claimant was English rather than Asian and did not understand the recipes. The tribunal held both remarks were unwanted conduct related to race and amounted to harassment under section 26.

The tribunal also found that on 5 November 2019 the claimant was told he was 'on call', asked to clear his locker and return property, and told he would not get any more work. It rejected the respondent's suggestion that this was a neutral reallocation of lockers or that performance and attendance concerns explained the decision. The tribunal accepted the claimant's evidence that the decision was taken because Mr Akhtar objected to him complaining about the 16 October remark and wanted him removed because he was not Asian, so the section 13 race discrimination complaint succeeded.

On 10 December 2019 the tribunal accepted that Mr Shokaib Karim told the claimant he would need to resign to receive his week-in-hand pay. It found, however, that this reflected a practice used for all staff on zero-hours contracts and that the allegation was not race discrimination, so that complaint was dismissed.

The tribunal held that the claimant's 12 November 2019 grievance alleging discrimination was a protected act. It found that the later invitation to an unspecified gross misconduct meeting, the failure to process the grievance, and the purported 29 November 2019 acknowledgement letter were detriments taken because of that grievance, and it rejected the respondent's reasonable-steps defence under section 109 because only a handbook policy was shown and there was no evidence of training or monitoring. The case was listed for a remedies hearing, so no monetary award was determined in this decision.