An employee who said he was harassed over his religion and his race in the workplace has been awarded €15,000 by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
A WRC Adjudicator, Louise Boyle, ordered Allpro Services to pay €15,000 compensation to Andrzej Waszkiewicz after finding that he suffered harassment on the grounds of religion and race from a work colleague in October 2020.
Mr Waszkiewicz, who is Polish, said his work colleague made fun of his religion and race between 12th October – 22nd October 2020 and that his supervisor Mr A did nothing to stop it.
He explained that he is Catholic and that his work colleague – Mr C – laughed at his tattoo of Jesus that he had, and laughed at Mr Waszkiewicz religious traditions.
Mr C also questioned the credibility of the Polish man’s religion and asked how the complainant knew that the Catholic faith was better than the Islamic faith. He also laughed at Mr Waszkiewicz because Christmas is celebrated on 24th December in Poland.
Mr C said that the Polish people were too religious and on another occasion when the complainant exclaimed “Oh my God!” when something happened at work, Mr C laughed at him for using the word God and on another occasion Mr C made derogatory comments about the Pope.
The inquiry heard that Mr Waszkiewicz found all this difficult to cope with, and went to his doctor who certified him sick from 11th of November 2020 and as result of the incidents he had to take anti-depressants.
The complainant submitted that he commenced employment in August 2020 and was happy at work for the first few weeks. However, in the middle of September 2020, Mr Waszkiewicz’s supervisor, Mr A, told him that Mr A wanted to extort money from the company by having an accident at work in order to obtain compensation. Mr Waszkiewicz told another supervisor Mr B about this and also emailed HR on 11th September 2020 about what he had heard.
A few days later Mr Waszkiewicz overheard colleagues including Mr A, Mr C laughing when he approached them and saying “he’s coming” and calling the complainant a “rat” and a “snitch”. Mr Waszkiewicz submitted that the work environment became full of stress for him.
Mr Waszkiewicz submitted that the company failed to respond appropriately to his complaints of bullying that took place. On 8th October 2020 he notified HR that someone tried to set him up for theft by placing a roll of bin bags into his own rucksack which scared him. HR advised the complainant that Mr D the operations manager would talk to him and Mr D offered to move Mr Waszkiewicz to a different work site but failed to do so.
The complainant’s daughter Ms Angelica Waszkiewicz gave evidence that she was there when her dad came home upset and that he would not leave the house and that she had never seen him like that. She said that he stopped talking to her and that she witnessed how badly these events impacted the complainant. Under cross examination Ms Waszkiewicz said that since her father left the company his mood has improved and he can now go out.
In her ruling, Ms Boyle said that the complainant came across as a very credible witness who accepted he had not reported the alleged incidents of harassment on the religion ground and on the ground of race to the respondent because of his previous experience with reporting what he regarded as bullying.
She said it was surprising that the company did not have in attendance any witnesses who were with the respondent at the time of the complainant’s employment.
Having heard the evidence and submissions, there did not appear to be any substantial investigation into the alleged bullying incidents, such as the incident with the bin bags which the complainant found in his rucksack and the name calling after the complainant advised the respondent that he believed an employee was going to take a fraud case against the respondent, she said.
“I find that the conduct were unwanted and related to the discriminatory ground of race and on the religion ground,” she said. “I find that the complainant has established a prima facie case of harassment on the religion ground and the ground of race and that the respondent has failed to rebut this and the complainant was discriminated against.”
She ordered Allpro to develop a workplace anti-harassment policy and a workplace anti-bullying policy that complied with the relevant statutory Code of Practice;
She awarded Mr Waszkiewicz €10,000 for the complaint of harassment on the religion ground and €5,000 for the complaint of harassment on the ground of race, for a total of €15,000.