How times have changed racial abuse.

[Ringo]

Racially abused worker awarded €20K

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0812/employment.html

An English pipe fitter who was racially abused in his Irish workplace has been awarded €20,000 in compensation.

The man, who worked for an engineering company on a Dublin building site, claimed colleagues called him names and frequently ganged-up on him to sing Irish rebel songs.

Some workers never spoke to him and whenever staff had to enter tanks or dangerous spaces they would say 'send the Brit in' to make the way safe

[shakermaker1982]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7555589.stm

Apologies if this has been posted before but it caught my eye whilst browsing the net (on lunch!).


An English pipe fitter has been awarded 20,000 euro (£15,630) in compensation after being racially abused in his Irish workplace.
The man, who was based in Dublin, complained that colleagues had taunted him because of where he came from.
They would say "send the Brit in" to clear the way if they had to enter potentially dangerous spaces at work.
Negative reports about England's performance in the 2006 World Cup were also read aloud in his presence.
He said some colleagues never spoke to him and others deliberately sang Irish songs of a political nature in his presence.
The man, who asked to remain anonymous, told an equality tribunal that shortly after joining the firm in April 2006 the abuse reached a point where he ate lunch in his car instead of the canteen.

He claimed that two months after starting work he was made redundant instead of a less experienced Irish worker because he was British.
The tribunal was told another worker said "the Brit should be sacked and an Irishman should not be let go" when the issue arose.
He said his supervisor was intimidating and had joined in with the abuse.
The company denied allegations of harassment and said the man had never complained to his site manager about abuse.
It also said the man was laid off because he had less service than other workers on the site.
The equality tribunal found the man was racially harassed and said some of the acts complained about were of a blatant and intimidatory nature.
But it ruled the man was not chosen for redundancy because of his nationality.

[shakermaker1982]

just posted this myself, sorry mods - can you merge this? Ringo and myself must have spotted this at the same time!

[anto1208]

A light bulb just went off over my head :D

[Ringo]

just posted this myself, sorry mods - can you merge this? Ringo and myself must have spotted this at the same time!

think you got there first!!

[Morbo]

"Negative reports about England's performance in the 2006 World Cup were also read aloud in his presence."

That just sounds like a bit of friendly banter to me, Not saying there wasn't bullying going on but I don't see anything wrong with slagging off Englands performance

[beautifulrock]

Dont mention the war what ever you do !!!

[boovidge]

what's the betting most of the people on that site were Liverpool/Man Utd/Celtic fans?

[superfrank]

That just sounds like a bit of friendly banter to me, Not saying there wasn't bullying going on but I don't see anything wrong with slagging off Englands performance
At what point does banter become bullying though?

And, naturally, if it was an Irish person in England getting that kind of abuse, you can be guaranteed there'd be uproar about it here.

I noticed this on RTÉ (http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0814/equality.html) today. It's a bad road to be starting down.