Manager's African wife jokes to chef were not harassment

Friday 06 July 2018

Teasing a black chef over finding a wife during a visit to Africa did not amount to harassment or race discrimination, a Tribunal has concluded.

The Employment and Discrimination Tribunal made the finding yesterday following a hearing with Nathanial Kumbuko, who said he was unfairly dismissed from his job working in the kitchen of a care home in November last year.

During a hearing presided over by tribunal Chairman Hilary Griffin, he had said that while he worked for Personal Care Limited, his boss, Ms Amanda Etienne, had told him to, “...to go [to Africa] and marry there and never come back.” He said that the words may have been uttered in a “jokey way”, but still caused him offence.

His colleagues painted a different version of events. They argued that they had been talking about holiday romances instead, as Mr Kumbuko was due to go on holiday to Kenya, and that “everyone was ‘having a laugh’”, including him.

Ms Griffin concluded that the exchange did not amount to race discrimination or harassment, but was “unwanted conduct”, which created a degrading, humiliating and offensive environment for him to work in.

Pictured: Mr Kumbuko told the Panel that an incident over kitchen cleanliness had led to him being unfairly dismissed in November 2017.

She observed in her judgement: “The Claimant clearly objected to his personal life being the source of jokes in the workplace, notwithstanding the fact that he apparently engaged in the conversation at the time. 

“However, having carefully considered all of the evidence regarding Ms Etienne’s comment, the Tribunal was satisfied that it was not related to the protected characteristic of race.  This was a comment made in the context of a conversation about holiday romances and the Tribunal was unable to draw any inference to suggest that the comment was related to the Claimant’s race.”

The tribunal was also asked to consider whether Mr Kumbuko was unfairly dismissed or simply resigned.

He gave evidence that his dismissal was linked with an incident in which he was told off for leaving the kitchen in a dirty state. He said that his manager had shouted and swore at him before sending him home. He felt that this was equivalent to being sacked. 

He added that he had been denied training opportunities and received written warnings when his colleagues did not, which he felt was unfavourable treatment linked with the fact he came from Africa and was black. 

But the Tribunal preferred the evidence of Mr Kumbuko's boss, who said that he had been sent home, but that she hadn’t swore at him over the kitchen incident. Instead, Ms Etienne said that she took him around the room, pointing out various hygiene flaws. These included unwiped food spillages on the gas cooker, fingerprints on serving containers, food stains in the freezer and out-of-date food stored in the fridge.

Ms Etienne added that she had given warnings to other staff and that she would have been happy to pay for training for him, but the onus was on him to select and provide details of a course he would like to follow.

The Tribunal decided that Mr Okumbo’s evidence had been “inconsistent” and “unreliable”, stating that he had sometimes taken “words or actions out of context” or left out “key facts” when presenting his case.

In the end, all three of his claims – wrongful dismissal, race discrimination and harassment – were rejected by the Tribunal.