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Interpreters win sacking damages | Interpreters win sacking damages |
(30 minutes later) | |
Two interpreters who sued the Home Office for unfair dismissal have been awarded £120,000 in compensation. | Two interpreters who sued the Home Office for unfair dismissal have been awarded £120,000 in compensation. |
Marti Khan and Odette King argued their employer failed to reassign them to other roles when interpreting was outsourced in 1990 at Heathrow Airport. | Marti Khan and Odette King argued their employer failed to reassign them to other roles when interpreting was outsourced in 1990 at Heathrow Airport. |
When they complained to the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke, they were sacked from their £25,000-a-year jobs. | When they complained to the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke, they were sacked from their £25,000-a-year jobs. |
An employment tribunal said they both suffered race and sex discrimination and should now be found similar posts. | |
The tribunal ruled Ms Kahn, 48, and Ms King, 57, must be reinstated within 28 days. | |
Decision appeal | |
In a judgment released on Monday, the Home Office was ordered to pay both women their salaries of £25,689 from 5 February 2005, a total of at least £102,000. | |
The government department was also ordered to pay them both £18,750 damages as well as a shift allowance, pensions payments and an extra four weeks' pay. | |
The two women won their unfair dismissal case at an employment tribunal and the decision was later upheld at an Employment Appeals Tribunal. | |
The appeal tribunal judge Jeremy McMullen ruled: "What happens when one of Britain's least impressive managements, by its sole consistent attribute of procrastination, drives two long-service Asian women to become unco-operative and dismissive? | |
Mocked at work | |
"The answer is systematic race and sex discrimination against them and dismissals unfair according to every tenet in the canon, rightly found by an employment tribunal." | |
The tribunal found that the women were subjected to unlawful sex and race discrimination in the way their initial complaints were handled. | |
It heard the women submitted formal grievances in September 2001, on the grounds that they had virtually no work to do and as a result were being mocked at their workplace, Heathrow Airport's Terminal Three. | |
Two months later they were both signed off sick by their GPs on the grounds of stress and depression. | |
They returned to work a year later, but several months after a tribunal hearing was held and then aborted in September 2004, the two women were dismissed. | |
The tribunal said both women, who had worked for the Home Office for combined a total of 45 years, had exemplary records. |
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