Story of the week !
A judge in an employment tribunal case has said that using the F-word is more common in the north.
Jetinder Shergill was presiding over a dispute between a delivery driver claiming compensation for unfair dismissal by a wholesaler company.
The claimant, Robert Ogden, had called a female colleague at Booker Ltd a “fucking mong” during a discussion in the office about her weight and eating doughnuts.
“Becky you can’t do that, are you a f***ing m***? no wonder it takes you 19 weeks to lose a stone, it hasn’t taken me 19 weeks”, Ogden said.
The woman claimed that Ogden was aggressive, and that she felt “violated and shocked” by the comment and was reduced to tears. She subsequently reported the incident to management, which fired Ogden.
But the judge found that swearing was the norm in the office, and it was “harsh” of the company to sack Ogden without warning.
He said that while swearing was not generally appropriate at work, “common everyday experience, particularly in the North, is that the F word is used quite often spoken in the public sphere”.
The judge was also sympathetic to Ogden’s claim that “mong” was not intended as a reference to people with Down’s Syndrome but “a common Northern term referring to stupid”.
“The phrase ‘fucking mong’ is an offensive term to use in the workplace”, he decided, but also “colloquial”, and “not on a par with use of such offensive terms as the racist words ‘N-word’ and ‘P-word’ or the homophobic terminology ‘Pword’ or ‘F-word’ etc. These are offensive par excellence”.
And while its use was “likely to be a prima facie breach of workplace discipline in most workplaces”, Bookers was something of a f**king exception.
Judge Shergill found the office atmosphere was “lawless and toxic”, the team was “dysfunctional” and the bosses were “part of the problem”. Ogden claimed that in one instance the shift manager poured sweets over the victim’s head.
There were frequent references to colleagues’ weight including use of terms such as “chubs”, and fake certificates were left on people’s desks commending the “Gainer of the Week”.
The judge ruled the firm had not followed a reasonably fair procedure in dismissing the driver. A further hearing will take place to determine compensation for Ogden.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/judge-fking-mg-case-claims-north-more-sweary
