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Hello all - new to the forum so I'll just dive right in with the question.
I was working as an IT contractor for an insurance company based in Scotland. My IT consultancy company had one other contractor working on the team alongside 5 Full Time Employees (FTE) of the insurance company. One of the FTE was an intern, employed directly by the insurance company. They were not a native English-speaker and used a translation app to communicate both verbally and written (important).
The team got on great, went for lunches, dinners, parties with each other.
One day, the intern brought in food from their culture from a local cuisine and asked if people would like to try some. I politely refused and said no thank you, thanks for the offer but I had previously had it and didn't like it so I didn't want it to go to waste, but I will return the favour by buying them a coffee. 3 days later, I was asked to leave the premises as a complaint of inappropriate behaviour had been made against me. That was the only information I was given until 4 days later when my HR business partner decided to tell me that I had been culturally offensive/borderline racist.
Long story short, the individual was found to have completely exaggerated (HRs words, not my own) the situation. They had said there was several instances of me being offensive but when asked for proof they were unable to provide anything. I, on the other hand, had the FTE from the insruance company provide character references for me to say they had never heard or saw anything of this nature. Despite this, I was still not allowed to return to this project/client as a result. On this basis, I asked my HR if I could put in a counter-complaint given their outright, blatant lies. I was told, and I quote, 'its probably better for everybody that you don't and just move on from this'.
This made things dramatically worse as rumours started to swirl that the 'inapprorpiate behaviour' was of a sexual nature given I was kicked off the project and told not to return. People who I had worked with didn't want to speak with me and tried to avoid me in the office which was exceptionally disheartening.
Fast forward 6 months later and I was 'managed out', where I was offered a 'voluntary' redundancy package however my manager was of the opinion I was taking it/should take it.
My old company are now on a hiring spree where they are looking for people to do the job I was previously doing. I tried reaching out to a number of old colleagues/recruiters at the company and have been blanked by every one of them. There was nothing in my redundancy contract stipulating I couldn't work for them again etc and I even offered to return an amount of redundancy if it was a stumbling block to re-employment. Nothing, blanked, ignored. I even applied for a couple of the open jobs on their website and get rejected saying I don't meet the minimum criteria, despite meeting every listed requirement (I did work for them for 2 years as well.....)
The only person who responded to me asked me for my CV and would be in touch after discussing with the team. He said he would be in touch with either a yes or a no and just a general catch up. After receiving my CV and discussing with said team, he has blanked me ever since. No follow up, nothing. However, I have had numerous LinkedIn notifications saying these people have been viewing my profile, potenitally indicating they are discussing me and then viewing my profile.
Given the above information, am I potentially being discriminated against here based on prior events and if so, do I have any form of recourse?
Thanks in advance.
I was working as an IT contractor for an insurance company based in Scotland. My IT consultancy company had one other contractor working on the team alongside 5 Full Time Employees (FTE) of the insurance company. One of the FTE was an intern, employed directly by the insurance company. They were not a native English-speaker and used a translation app to communicate both verbally and written (important).
The team got on great, went for lunches, dinners, parties with each other.
One day, the intern brought in food from their culture from a local cuisine and asked if people would like to try some. I politely refused and said no thank you, thanks for the offer but I had previously had it and didn't like it so I didn't want it to go to waste, but I will return the favour by buying them a coffee. 3 days later, I was asked to leave the premises as a complaint of inappropriate behaviour had been made against me. That was the only information I was given until 4 days later when my HR business partner decided to tell me that I had been culturally offensive/borderline racist.
Long story short, the individual was found to have completely exaggerated (HRs words, not my own) the situation. They had said there was several instances of me being offensive but when asked for proof they were unable to provide anything. I, on the other hand, had the FTE from the insruance company provide character references for me to say they had never heard or saw anything of this nature. Despite this, I was still not allowed to return to this project/client as a result. On this basis, I asked my HR if I could put in a counter-complaint given their outright, blatant lies. I was told, and I quote, 'its probably better for everybody that you don't and just move on from this'.
This made things dramatically worse as rumours started to swirl that the 'inapprorpiate behaviour' was of a sexual nature given I was kicked off the project and told not to return. People who I had worked with didn't want to speak with me and tried to avoid me in the office which was exceptionally disheartening.
Fast forward 6 months later and I was 'managed out', where I was offered a 'voluntary' redundancy package however my manager was of the opinion I was taking it/should take it.
My old company are now on a hiring spree where they are looking for people to do the job I was previously doing. I tried reaching out to a number of old colleagues/recruiters at the company and have been blanked by every one of them. There was nothing in my redundancy contract stipulating I couldn't work for them again etc and I even offered to return an amount of redundancy if it was a stumbling block to re-employment. Nothing, blanked, ignored. I even applied for a couple of the open jobs on their website and get rejected saying I don't meet the minimum criteria, despite meeting every listed requirement (I did work for them for 2 years as well.....)
The only person who responded to me asked me for my CV and would be in touch after discussing with the team. He said he would be in touch with either a yes or a no and just a general catch up. After receiving my CV and discussing with said team, he has blanked me ever since. No follow up, nothing. However, I have had numerous LinkedIn notifications saying these people have been viewing my profile, potenitally indicating they are discussing me and then viewing my profile.
Given the above information, am I potentially being discriminated against here based on prior events and if so, do I have any form of recourse?
Thanks in advance.
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