Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Danut  Nae

Supervalu, Talbot Street Dublin

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 21 Equal Status Act, 2000

CA-00064886-001

20/07/2024

The complainant gave his evidence on affirmation. He is a Romanian national and specifically a member of the Roma community on whose behalf he acts as an advocate.

The events giving rise to the complaint took place on April 27th, 2024

The complainant entered a Supervalu shop on Talbot Street around 7:50am to make a number of purchases, an energy drink, and a pack of chewing gum. He attempted to use the self-service check out but , when he tried to pay it would not work.

There were two women working at the tills that time and a security guard was in the background. The complainant  tried to attract the attention of the two female employees for assistance but, to his surprise the security guard started to shout at him saying that he (the guard) could not be of assistance.

This surprised the complainant because he had not asked the security guard for assistance but had been trying to get the attention of the two female check out operators. He tried to explain this to the security guard who became aggressive, raising his voice and behaving in an abusive manner.

 He used language such as that he was not happy to see the complainant in the shop, and that he did not need customers such as him and did so in a raised voice. He was later joined by a second security guard and they both then pointed at the complainant and ridiculed him.

One  of the check-out personnel eventually helped him make the necessary payment,  and the security guard returned to observing the CCTV.

The complainant asked one of the women working there if he could speak to the manager. He spoke to her and told her what happened, but she did not acknowledge the complaint or apologise.

In the presence  of the manager  he asked the security guard to apologise but he said he would ‘never apologise’. 

The complainant says he felt discriminated against and humiliated because he was a member of the Roma Community and because everyone in the store at the time was looking at him.

The respondent did not attend the hearing. No explanation was received for its failure to do so.

The Equal Status Act is a very important piece of legislation, prohibiting discrimination, harassment and related behaviour outside of the workplace, in connection with the provision of goods and services, the provision of accommodation and access to education, on ten specific grounds.

For the purposes of this complaint that includes the nationality or race ground. The complainant is a Romanian national and a member of the Roma community.

It will be clear from his account above, given on affirmation, that he was subjected to a surprising level of disrespectful treatment which is hard to reconcile with any business concerned about positive customer relationships.

The unwillingness of the shop manager to even acknowledge the complainant’s feelings compounds this. It is perhaps not a surprise that the business also failed to demonstrate the necessary respect  for the law and the procedures of the WRC by attending the hearing of the complaint.

It appears from his account that one of the security personnel intruded in a matter related to the operation of the self-service in which he had no legitimate business. The complainant made it clear in his evidence that he had never addressed the security guard; indeed why would he in a matter related to the operation of the till.

But even if the security office mistakenly thought he had been, he could have addressed the complainant’s mistake politely and respectfully, and referred his query to the relevant person.

It is not hard to see that this was an unpleasant experience for the complainant.

What is rather more difficult is to see how this can be represented as a breach of the Equal Status Act.

The complainant had difficulty in identifying an act or omission which could be represented as less favourable treatment of him, and he had even greater difficulty in establishing that this was a result of his race or nationality.

He was not denied service, for example, beyond there being some delay in sorting out the operation of the self-service till, but he could not establish that this was due to his race, nationality or ethnic origin, although he ‘felt’ that it was.

This is a requirement of the Act which states at Section 3(1)(a)  that discrimination shall be taken to have occurred when ‘a person is treated less favourably than another person is, has been or would be treated’.

As noted above this imposes a two-step test; one that there have been such an act of less favourable treatment and second that it is attributable to one of the protected characteristics.

To put it in extreme terms, a service provider which has a general practise of treating all its customers equally to displays of rudeness and disrespect, but which falls short of actually discriminating between them would probably survive this test, although its long term trading prospects as a business depending on customers might be in jeopardy.

So while the complainant’s feelings following the treatment he received as a consumer are entirely understandable, he has failed to establish any act of less favourable treatment based on his race, nationality or ethnic origin etc. and accordingly his complaint fails.

For the reasons set out above Complaint CA-00064686-001 is not upheld.

Key Words: Equal Status, race