Bringing A Race Discrimination Claim Against Your Employer

We have seen that the number of claims for race discrimination rose significantly last year and it is expected that this may be due to increased identification of the issue and more people raising formal complaints.

If you consider that your employer is discriminating against you because of your race, you may wish to consider what options are available to you.

Background

Race is one of the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, which includes colour, nationality, ethnic origins and national origins.

The Act provides protection for employees against race discrimination by making it unlawful for an employer to:

• Treat an employee less favourably than they treat others because of their race;
• Apply a provision, criterion or practice that would place a particular racial group at a disadvantage without showing that it was done so for a legitimate reason;
• Subject an employee to harassment related to their race;
• Victimise an employee by subjecting them to a detriment as a result of them making or intending to make a complaint or allegation of race discrimination.

Raising a grievance

Before bringing a race discrimination claim against your employer, you may first wish to raise a grievance to attempt to resolve the issue out of Court.

You should check your employer’s disciplinary and grievance procedures which should identify the person to whom you should go to raise a grievance and set out each stage of the process. You may wish to raise a grievance formally or informally, however, your employer should always provide a response.

Once a grievance has been raised, your employer will then carry out any necessary investigations and hold a grievance meeting. You have the right to be accompanied to any grievance meeting if you wish. Your employer should also allow you to appeal any formal decisions made.

Making a race discrimination claim against your employer

If the matter is not able to be resolved by raising a grievance, you may wish to make a race discrimination claim at the Employment Tribunal under the Equality Act 2010.

The claim must be brought within three months less one day of the act of discrimination occurring.

You must tell the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) that you intend to make a claim to the Tribunal. You will be offered the chance to try and settle the dispute outside of Court using Acas’s free Early Conciliation service, however, if this does not work, Acas will send you an early conciliation certificate which must be used when you make a claim at the Tribunal.

Once you receive this certificate, you will have at least one month left to make your claim.