Racist Comment - Gross Misconduct?

[mick russ]

Good afternoon all,

I'm in a position to liaise with HR on a recent workplace complaint. A supervisor made an inappropriate joke about another person. This occurs on a mine site and swearing is far from uncommon.

There were four individuals involved in the conversation when the supervisor called another person (of African origin) a "black c..t". The supervisor apologized shortly after that saying that it was a big mistake and that it was a joke.

I would like to know whether this type of racial comment warrants a dismissal? The alleviating circumstances are that the supervisor has unblemished work history and hasn't been reprimanded for similar issues in the past. The comment wasn't intended to offend the individual.

Your thoughts would be much appreciated.

[ULA]

Racist and offensive comments or behaviour should not be tolerated in the workplace and are discrimination under the Equalities Act 2010.

There should be guidelines in the company's disciplinary procedures policy which details the grounds upon which an employee can be dismissed for gross misconduct, so I would urge you to look at whether this or something of a similar nature is covered, I would hope that it would be.

Also something to bear in mind that is often overlooked when dealing with a potential gross misconduct is that it must be considered to be a deliberate wrongdoing or gross negligence by the employee that undermines the relationship between employee and employer. Gross misconduct allows for summary dismissal i.e. no notice. However a decision would need to be made as to the seriousness of the misconduct so to whether it was effectively "gross enough" to warrant no notice or whether the termination was not serious enough to do so, in which case it would still be a dismissal for misconduct but with notice.

Hope that helps.

[Huxie]

⬆️ Ignore above post - LINNELLAA is a spammer and has been reported

[ULA]

Thank you Huxie