Mr Slawomir Rowinski v Kuehne + Nagel Limited — 2021

Mr Slawomir Rowinski, a Polish Team Leader, brought race discrimination complaints arising from incidents on 9 July 2019 and 6 August 2019, the handling of his grievance and appeal, and the respondent’s English language policy. The tribunal found that on 9 July 2019 he was speaking Polish to help a Polish trainee who was having difficulty, and preferred his account that Neil Wailes responded with the words, “I’m really pissed off with people who do not speak English at work,” in an angry, rude, aggressive and hostile manner. It also found that on 6 August 2019, after the claimant and a colleague had returned from a break, Wailes told him to “stop speaking Polish” in a rude and aggressive manner.

The tribunal held that those incidents amounted to detriments and that the respondent had not shown that the less favourable treatment was unconnected with race. It considered that the claimant’s use of Polish on 9 July 2019 was, at most, a technical breach and did not justify Wailes’ reaction. On 6 August 2019, the tribunal found the conversation was not part of working activities and could not sensibly be treated as falling within the scope of the respondent’s language policy. The tribunal also found that the respondent’s consideration of the grievance and appeal took too long, with an unexplained period in September 2019, and concluded that the delay was also because of the claimant’s race.

The indirect discrimination complaint was dismissed. The tribunal identified the relevant PCP as the respondent’s policy that English is the appropriate business language in the course of employees’ working activities, not a blanket prohibition on Polish or other non-English languages. It accepted that the policy was applied to all employees and that it could disadvantage people whose first language is not English, but held that the respondent had shown legitimate aims, including the smooth running of the operation, avoiding exclusion, and maintaining cohesion, and that the policy was a proportionate means of achieving those aims. The judgment records that a remedy hearing was to take place later, so no award was made in this decision.