Working in a hostile environment created by others doesn’t always make your employer liable.
“Tribunal and EATStands for Employment Appeal Tribunal. It hears appeals from employment tribunal decisions on points of law, not on the facts. It is not a way of simply asking for a second opinion on the outcome. held the employer's response reduced hostility and wasn't race-based; claims dismissed.”
When the people abusing you are not your colleagues, your claim against your employer turns on what your employer itself did or failed to do about it, not on how hostile the environment was.
- Insist that your employer explains, clearly and directly, what steps it is taking after your complaint, rather than piecing it together from what other people tell you.
- A written record helps: note who your employer spoke to, what got escalated, and what you were actually told.
- If your employer's response did nothing to improve your situation, or made it worse, get advice on whether that response, rather than the original conduct, gives you a claim.
The situation
A car park attendant worked alone at a site run by her employer beneath a residential development. She was subjected to overt racial abuse by two members of staff working for a different company, the developer's own marketing team, not her colleagues. She reported it to her manager, who spoke to the people involved, reviewed CCTV footage, and changed working arrangements to reduce further contact. He didn't interview other staff, didn't escalate the matter to the developer's more senior managers, and didn't tell her directly what had been done. News of the new arrangement reached her through one of her abusers, not her manager.
What the tribunal found
The tribunal dismissed her claims. It found her employer would have responded the same way to any employee's complaint, regardless of race, so there was no less favourable treatment. On harassmentUnwanted behaviour related to a protected characteristic, such as your sex, race, disability, age or religion, that violates your dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile or humiliating environment..., it accepted that an employer's inaction can, in principle, count as conduct that creates a hostile environment. But here, the manager's response, imperfect as it was, reduced the hostility rather than adding to it, and wasn't driven by her race. On appeal, the Employment Appeal Tribunal agreed. An employer doesn't become legally responsible for a hostile environment just because someone else created it and the employee is still expected to work there. What matters is whether the employer's own conduct, or failure to act, contributed to that environment, and whether that was because of race.
Conteh v Parking Partners Ltd. UKEAT/0288/10. Employment Appeal Tribunal. 17 December 2010.