Nickname was race discrimination

An employment tribunal has ruled that using the name “Borat” to refer to someone from Eastern Europe amounted to direct race discrimination.

In 2010, a polish welder brought a number of claims against his employer, including race and sexual orientation discrimination.  Most of the claims were rejected, but the nickname ‘Borat’ (after a film and television character) was ruled to be harassment on the grounds of race, created a degrading and humiliating work environment and constituted direct race discrimination.

The judgment explained that someone who had all the characteristics of the claimant but was neither from Poland nor perceived to be of Eastern European origin would not have had the nickname applied to him.

The tribunal also held that he had been subjected to sexual orientation discrimination by a colleague’s use of the words including ‘gay’ towards him.

Giving a worker a nickname based on his or her country of origin, or national stereotypes risks a finding of harassment and direct discrimination. There have been other similar examples that have been found to be discrimination including calling an Irishman ‘thick Paddy’ and making references to Hitler and Nazi salutes to a German worker.