Polish men awarded €22k over litany of racial abuse

FOUR Polish men who were routinely racially abused and harassed while working for a recruitment agency have been awarded more than €22,000.

Pawel Siekierski, Rafal Labedzki, Lukasz Jedlinski and Mariusz Kowalski took a case to the Equality Tribunal claiming they were discriminated against in respect of harassment on the grounds of race while they worked for Sales Placement Ltd as general operatives in an industrial site operated by a third party (named as Z Ltd).

The men claimed the harassment was carried out by two of their co-workers, Ms A and Mr B, who supervised them and who were employed by Z Ltd.

In evidence submitted to the tribunal, all four men outlined an appalling litany of racial abuse they suffered which they claimed amounted to harassment.

Mr Jedlinski said that on one occasion Ms A said to him: “You Polish bastard, work faster – this is not Poland, this is Ireland.”

A similar trend of abuse was reported by Mr Labedzki who said that on a number of occasions he was called “fucking Polish” and a “fucking donkey”.

He also said that on one occasion, at breakfast, he was speaking Polish when Ms A said “only speak English, no fucking Polish” and “no more pizza” (in reference to the particular type of pizza which is popular among Polish nationals).

Mr Kowalski also gave corroborating evidence. He stated in relation to the eating incident that Ms A said “Polish food smells, you smell, all Polish people smell”.

Three of the men said they had complained to Sales Placement Ltd about the conditions of employment in Z Ltd, but that nothing was done despite the complaint being acknowledged. For its part, Sales Placement Ltd claimed the relevant contract was the one it had with Z Ltd and it had no responsibility towards the complainants with regard to the complaints in question.

However, the Equality Tribunal found that the four men had established a case of harassment and ordered that Pawel Siekerski be awarded the sum of €4,500, Lukasz Jedlinski the sum of €4,000, Rafal Labedzki the sum of €4,000 and Mariusz Kowalski the sum of €10,000.

A total of 27 Employment Equality decisions were released by the Equality Tribunal yesterday.