Seedy Fofana sought £500,000 compensation over graffito that colleague in Gloucester did not mean as racial slur
A Black warehouse worker has won a race harassment claim after a disgruntled colleague wrote the word “slave” on a piece of machinery.
The colleague had meant it not as a racial slur but as an expression of his anger at, as he saw it, being overworked and underpaid, an employment tribunal heard.
But the presence of the word in the workplace violated Seedy Fofana’s dignity and created a “hostile, humiliating and offensive environment for him”, the tribunal ruled.
Awarding Fofana £3,000 compensation, the employment judge David Hughes concluded that the graffito did relate to race even though that had not been the intention.
