‘Racist bi--ch’ quip not sackable

A DARWIN cafe worker who was sacked after he called a manager a “racist bitch” has been awarded $3898 plus superannuation after the Fair Work Commission found he was unfairly dismissed.

The worker told the Fair Work Commission he stood by his statement.

He had worked at Parap eatery QBar for 18 months when a co-worker overheard him tell another employee that the cafe’s manager could be a “racist bitch”.

The remark was reported back to the manager he had referred to.

According to the sacked worker, the manager had employed a number of her Estonian-speaking friends and that those staff often spoke among themselves in Estonian.

This created a climate of “cultural exclusion” within the cafe, he claimed.

The worker said that during a confrontation with the manager about the remark, the manager admitted she favoured the Estonian staff.

In evidence, he admitted that he “probably” should not have made the remark, but that he didn’t make it to the woman’s face. In an email to the cafe’s managing director, the sacked worker wrote of his annoyance at having been “made out to be the bad person here for making one comment out of anger and frustration”.

He wrote he was “not sorry for what I said as it is how I feel after watching everything go on in this place over the last year and it’s not right”.

The commission heard that “everyone swears” in the cafe and he shouldn’t be made out to be the “nasty one”.

In an email to the cafe managing director, the worker said he had spoken with past employees and with customers who agreed with his complaints about the Estonian staff.

In her findings, Fair Work Commissioner Michelle Bissett wrote the worker’s actions in calling the manager a “racist bitch” and discussing workplace issues with customers “can at best be described as inappropriate and unprofessional” which “warranted some reproach and warning”.

But she wrote she was “not convinced that they warranted dismissal”.

The man was awarded $3898 plus superannuation in compensation for lost earnings as a result of his sacking.

The amount awarded was cut by 30 per cent to take into account the worker’s behaviour.