Mayfair casino Aspinalls guilty of race discrimination, tribunal finds
A London casino racially discriminated against a member of staff by permitting a patron to not have black dealers at their table, an employment tribunal concluded.
Semhar Tesfagiorgis successfully sued her former employer Crown London Aspinalls, based in Mayfair, following an incident in December 2019, when she and a colleague were prevented from working at a table after a patron requested to have “females with fair skin” working on it
Aspinalls argued they did not allow Tesfagiorgis and her colleague to deal to the patron to appease the person in question, rather than to discriminate against Tesfagiorgis, who worked as an inspector/dealer at casino between 2007 and 2020, as they perceived it necessary to accommodate patrons’ request regardless of how unreasonable they were.
The judgment said: “Our finding is that the claimant and her black female colleagues were held back from going on duty because they were not ‘fair-skinned, female dealers’ or ‘western-looking female staff’ …“The accommodation of the request was direct race discrimination of the claimant because but for her race she would have been asked to deal to the patron. The granting of that request was less favourable treatment by the managers because of race.”
Tesfagiorgis was not allowed to swap a shift with a colleague as a patron did not want a black dealer.
The panel said: “The shift swap was refused because of the claimant’s race: she did not fit the patron’s requirement for ‘white female dealers only’, which the respondent accommodated. The reason the claimant was not one of the patron’s preferred dealers is because she was not white. The refusal of the shift swap was less favourable treatment of the claimant because of her race.”
Tesfagiorgis said after the conclusion of a tribunal: “I tried for many years to open a dialogue about the racism myself and many others were often faced with but I was either shut down, ignored or gaslighted each time.
“The direct discrimination myself and other black colleagues received was not an isolated incident. Although the tribunal could not rule on past events due to time limits, they have acknowledged this was the case and for once Crown Aspinalls will finally be forced to do the same, for this I am grateful to the employment tribunal.”
A spokeswoman for Crown said: "Aspinalls notes the judgement by the Tribunal in this matter and we welcome the dismissal by the Tribunal of all but one of the Claimant’s complaints.
"Aspinalls is committed to creating a workplace for our employees, and a venue for our patrons, that is free of discrimination and harassment.
"We are pleased that the Tribunal:
agreed that our senior managers did all they could to investigate and deal with the incident once it was brought to their attention in a supportive and informative manner; and
did not accept the allegation that the company has a culture of discrimination.
"We take on board comments made by the Tribunal about the efficacy of our equality training and will continue to work to ensure this is as effective as possible."