Chinese woman dismissed from shop awarded €15,000 for discrimination

A Chinese woman has been awarded €15,000 after alleging that she was dismissed on racial grounds by her employer who accused her of stealing.

The woman took the owners of the Spar in Drimnagh, Dublin, to the Equality Tribunal following her dismissal in February 2007.

The tribunal held that Towner Trading trading as The Spar did not follow fair procedures in dismissing the woman, did not carry out an investigation and denied her the opportunity to seek representation, prepare a defence and attend a disciplinary hearing.

The woman took the case on the basis that an appropriate disciplinary procedure was not followed and no allowance was made because of her language difficulties.

She had been working at the Spar for eight months when she received a text from the shop alleging that she had been caught on CCTV camera robbing bus tickets. She was shown the footage and denied it. Two days later she received a text from another colleague: "You are not working here anymore".

Spar denied any allegation of discrimination and said it has seven Irish staff and six Chinese staff, all of whom were treated equally. It also told the tribunal that CCTV footage showed the alleged theft and that it tallied with a stock-take sheet which showed 21 bus tickets, worth €3.20 each were unaccounted for on February 26th, 2007.

The Equality Officer Hugh Lonsdale cited a previous case involving Campbell Catering v Rasaq in which the Labour Court held that employers have a "positive duty" to ensure that "special measures" are taken for non Irish-national workers to ensure they understand disciplinary proceedings that are taken against them.

The Labour Court had held that applying the same standards to a non-Irish and Irish person, given the difference in language and culture, could amount to a case of discrimination.