Read this today @orangemapleleaves and thought of you. Your colleague and the company you work for need to be careful!!!
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Calling a colleague ‘grandmother’ is harassment, judge rules
Referring to an older woman in the workplace as your “grandmother” is ageist, a judge has found.
The ruling was made at an employment tribunal where a factory worker in her 60s successfully sued for age discrimination and harassment.
Andrea Petroi, who worked on the production line at the Soho Sandwich Company, felt “humiliated” after younger colleagues said she was “like my grandmother” and “she is old, so she gets angry”.
She is now in line for compensation after the tribunal in Reading, Berkshire, ruled that she had been subject to “unwanted conduct related to her age”.
Ms Petroi started working as a line leader with the company in 2008. In April 2022, she had an altercation on the sandwich production line with Abu Sayed, a fellow line leader. The tribunal heard he told that she should not be managing him and became very “aggressive”.
When the incident was investigated, he said she was “like my grandmother” but he “respected her”.
Ms Petroi also complained about Mr Sayed singing in his own language, Bengali, and she discovered he had been referring to her as “grandmother” in a song.
Time off with stress
During a meeting about the incident, her general manager asked her, “What is important to you at this age? What is most important to you in life because they are young, they need to learn things. But for you, right now, what is most important?”
Ms Petroi asked her general manager to clarify her position in the company because she believed she was more senior than Mr Sayed. He told her that he could not confirm this because “things have changed”, which she took to mean she had been “demoted”.
During the investigation, some of her colleagues admitted saying “she is old, so she gets angry”. In May 2022, she sent an email to management saying she had been “bullied and humiliated and was unwell because of the stress”.
She took eight days’ sick leave and was told that she would not be paid for the time off.
Ms Petroi resigned at the end of the month, saying that it was “impossible” for her to work at the company because she was a “victim of unfair treatment and discrimination”.
‘Unwanted conduct’
Employment Judge Wendy Anderson said: “The tribunal accepts that Mr Sayed’s reference to Ms Petroi as being ‘like my grandmother’ was unwanted conduct relating to her age.
“It notes that the comment was not made directly to her, but it was relayed to her and there was a second incident in which Mr Sayed referred to her as a grandmother (using the Bengali term Dadi) in her hearing.
“The tribunal accepts that this was unwanted conduct related to her age, which had the effect of humiliating her, and it was reasonable for her to feel that way.”
Ms Petroi also made a successful claim that she suffered constructive unfair dismissal because she was effectively “demoted” and she was not supported in her job role.
She is also due wages for the time she took off sick and back-dated bank holiday pay.