Mixing up the names of non-white colleagues counts as race discrimination as it makes them feel “lumped together as a group”, an employment tribunal has ruled. The Telegraph has more.
Employment Judge Garry Smart said those from minority backgrounds were often “confused” with others from the same heritage, which can make them feel “hurt” and “offended”.
He said the “adverse inference” of confusing the names of non-white employees was because of race and could therefore be seen as discriminatory.
His ruling came in the case of Abhinav Sharma, who accused Magdelena Badescu, a white colleague, of racism when she referred to him by the name of another Indian employee.
The Jaguar Land Rover engineer said he looked and sounded “very different” to co-worker Bhuvnesh Bhardwaj – who was of a larger build, wore glasses, had a beard and spoke with a British accent.
The tribunal commented that, in comparison, Mr Sharma was slimmer, spoke with an “obvious Indian accent” and was clean-shaven or had “nothing more than stubble”.
The engineer sued for race discrimination over the “mix-up”.
The tribunal panel found there “could be no mistaken identity based on looks or voices” and concluded the mistake happened “because of his race”.
Mr Sharma is now in line for compensation after the judge upheld his claims and ruled that this “would not have happened with non-Indian colleagues”.
The tribunal, held in Birmingham, heard that Mr Sharma started working for Jaguar Land Rover as an engineer in 2017.
Mr Sharma worked alongside Ms Badescu in the engines team and the pair were said to get on “well”.
The incident occurred during a team meeting in May 2022, when Ms Badescu was said to have referred to Mr Sharma as “Bhuv” – the shortened version of Mr Bhardwaj’s first name. …
In September 2022, Mr Sharma handed in his notice.
He then submitted a document in which he complained about several racial and age-related incidents of discrimination at the company before taking it to an employment tribunal.
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