After being fired for accusing an Indian manager of racism, a white accountant has been awarded more than PS40,000 as compensation.
Nicola Blackwell started working as a payroll manager for Smart Tax and Accountancy, mainly remotely, in August 2021.
She said that her manager Varsha Kapoor and another colleague were preventing her from joining Microsoft Teams calls the month after.
Ashwin Juneja told her that she passed her probation in October. He was the manager who hired her.
She said that Kapoor had a bad manner. At the time, she didn’t know that Juneja was Kapoor’s daughter. Her relationship with Kapoor deteriorated further shortly after the call.
Kapoor is the only person who could have made this mistake.
Blackwell, however, overheard Kapoor telling a client that “a member of our payroll team” made the mistake. This implied that Kapoor was blaming someone else for her mistake.
Blackwell complained to the director of the company that Kapoor treated her in a way she believed was racially motivated. Juneja said to Blackwell in a December grievance meeting that “racial bias is a bold statement”.
Blackwell’s complaints were deemed “nothing to worry about” and she was told that “Juneja had wasted a lot of time” on her part.
The tribunal heard that her workload increased in January 2022 and she was frequently kicked out of call due to how the system worked.
She told the court that Blackwell’s relationship deteriorated further with Kapoor, which was made worse by the fact that she was Juneja’s mother. Kapoor was reluctant to discuss any issues with her after she began recording the Teams calls.
She filed a formal complaint in February, but it was rejected. In April 2022, she was asked to attend a formal meeting of disciplinary proceedings and dismissed for “lack due care and attention”.
Callum Cowx, a judge for employment, stated in his judgement that Blackwell’s treatment was less favourable than her co-workers, but “this was not due to her being White British”.
Judge Cowx did find that the victim had been victimized.
The reason for [her] dismissal is the personality conflict between [Ms Kapoor] and herself, and the complaints that [Ms Blackwell] made about [Ms Kapoor].
In a family-run small business, it was inevitable for [her] to lose her job, if she made the accusations she did against [Ms Kapoor].
He said: “It is not a coincidence that the dismissal procedure was started only two days after she was told her grievance had been rejected.
The firm was free to terminate [her] employment because of the complaints she made against her manager.
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Blackwell received PS12,000 in damages for emotional injury and PS16146 for financial losses. The award was increased by 20% for the employer’s “unreasonable” failure to follow Acas codes of practice regarding disciplinary and grievance processes.
With interest, the total compensation for her injury to feelings increased from PS41,181.58 to PS14.400. The amount awarded for financial loss was also increased to PS19.375.57.
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