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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 ordered that the women, who have exemplary records, should be found equivalent posts. 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.