A woman who was asked by a senior colleague at an accountancy firm if she liked eating cats and dogs as they are the main meat sources for Asian people has been awarded €8,000.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) ordered the un-named firm to make the payment after finding the woman was sexually harassed and harassed by the colleague and was also discriminated against. WRC adjudication officer Jim Dolan found the woman's complaint "to be well founded".
The woman documented a series of incidents where she was subjected to harassment by the colleague at the firm, where she worked from May until November of last year.
In July, the colleague asked her: “I heard cats and dogs are the main meat sources of Asians, so do you like eating them?” The woman said she felt disgusted and offended by the comment.
The WRC was told that the same colleague on several occasions took un-welcome “Snapchats” of her and sent these to his friends. The woman asked him to stop, but he continued. On one occasion, the man showed her a response from a friend, in which she was described as a “cute chink”.
The woman felt degraded and that the treatment amounted to discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation and race.
Crying
On June 23rd, the same colleague asked the woman about her plans for the weekend. She said she was going to a nightclub with friends. He then made a comment about “I might look for a girl that night because that could be what I’m into”. The woman was upset by the comment and felt embarrassed as there were many colleagues present.
On another occasion, the complainant’s reporting manager found her crying and asked why she was so upset. At the end of their discussion, the woman was asked to take the weekend to think about how she would like the issue to be handled.
The following week, senior colleagues said they would handle the issue in an “informal” way and asked the man to apologise to the woman. He did so and the woman accepted the apology.
The woman felt that the atmosphere in the office became more professional after the apology. However, as time passed the woman felt that she no longer belonged to the team at work. On November 10th, she resigned, saying she felt her wellbeing was being affected by the job.
In its submission to the WRC, the employer stated that the senior colleague involved was quite surprised to have upset the complainant. The firm stated that the complainant was asked if she would be happy with an apology, this appeared to be acceptable and that the man involved apologised.
The firm stated that it has an Employee Assistance Programme in place and the complainant in the case could have utilised this programme to help herself.
