A Black warehouse worker in England was awarded £3,000 in a racial harassment claim filed over a co-worker who had graffitied “slave” on a piece of machinery.
Seedy Fofana won a legal judgment against his former employer, Window Widgets, after discovering the word “slave” written on a Hubtex machine during a stock-take, The Independent reports. His co-worker, Tony Bennett, had written variations of the word on warehouse equipment to protest working conditions. Despite Bennett’s claim that the graffiti wasn’t racially motivated, Employment Judge David Hughes ruled that the word “will evoke in contemporary English speakers the enslavement of Black people.”
“All right-thinking people regard slavery as a monstrosity,” Hughes said.“Mr Fofana, an evidently proud Black man, feels the evil of slavery viscerally. That is understandable and respectable. We accept his sense of hurt at the graffito is genuine.”
Fofana was the only Black employee at the warehouse when the graffiti incident occurred. After management became aware of Bennett’s protest, they removed all visible instances of the word “slave,” but one remained unnoticed. Fofana discovered it during his shift but chose not to report it. He resigned the following month and filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the company, citing a hostile work environment.
By not removing all of the graffiti, the warehouse became a “hostile, humiliating and offensive environment for him,” the tribunal ruled. While presiding over the case, Judge Hughes acknowledged that the word “slave” could have various interpretations, including a possible reference to machines replacing human labor. However, he emphasized that in an English-speaking context, most people “will probably first think of the enslavement of Black people by white people,” he said.
The tribunal acknowledged that ruling in favor of the complainant might appear “harsh,” but emphasized that the use of such a highly charged term subjects the company to serious consequences.
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