Evtec Aluminium Ltd

Case Summary

The claimant, a Polish national machine operator, appealed an employment tribunal decision dismissing his complaints of direct race discrimination and victimisation. The tribunal found no evidence that his manager Craig Mather treated him adversely because of his Polish nationality, and rejected victimisation complaints relating to his discrimination grievance and a collective grievance about Friday breaks. The EAT dismissed the claimant's grounds of appeal, finding no material error in the tribunal's reasoning.

The EAT upheld the tribunal's decisions. The tribunal's finding that the claimant had not established direct race discrimination was sound, supported by: the claimant's lack of contemporaneous evidence, his credibility issues, the absence of corroborating witnesses despite the alleged frequency of incidents, and no logical inference that alleged mistreatment was motivated by race rather than other factors. The victimisation complaints were properly rejected as the tribunal found adequate non-discriminatory explanations for the actions taken (moving the claimant to avoid impracticability during the investigation, and providing a work breaks option that was available to all employees on the same terms). The tribunal's assessment that there was no separate, properly pleaded working time regulations complaint was correct as the judge had properly concluded at a preliminary hearing that no such complaint had been raised.

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• •Whether the claimant was subjected to direct race discrimination by reference to Polish nationality between February and November 2019
• •Whether alleged incidents involving manager Craig Mather (threats of dismissal, warnings about performance) were motivated by the claimant's Polish nationality
• •Whether the claimant was victimised following his protected acts (grievance of 13 November 2019 about discriminatory behaviour and appeal of collective grievance outcome)
• •Whether moving the claimant to a different workstation after raising his grievance constituted victimisation
• •Whether an inadequate investigation into the discrimination grievance constituted direct discrimination or victimisation
• •Whether the respondent's response to a collective grievance about Friday breaks (letter of 19 April 2022) constituted victimisation
• •Whether there was a distinct complaint under the Working Time Regulations 1998 that had been properly raised before the tribunal

The full source document is available from the official publication page.