A chef has received a £20,000 payout for racial and sexual oriented harassment after his boss ranted that people from his home country of Mexico were “not reliable” and threatened to get him deported.
An employment tribunal heard the claims after Cesar Omar Perez Vargas, former head chef of five star restaurant Pot Kiln in Thatcham, West Berkshire, walked out of the restaurant during a busy Sunday shift in which he ended up serving around 60 customers, when he originally agreed to cover no more than 45 on a Sunday.
The chef claimed that he felt he was being imposed upon and given an “unreasonable workload”; when Mr Rockcliff was confronted with this, he denied it and asked the chef to carry on working, which led him to walk out.
Mr Perez Vargas alleged that Mr Rockcliff followed him on his way home as he walked out and said: “I knew that you Mexicans were not reliable people. I will call the Home Office and make sure that they send you back to the country that you belong. I will also tell them that you have been sexually harassing all the male staff.”
The chef, who started his career at Banyan Tree Mayakoba in Quintana Roo, Mexico, said he was left feeling “shocked, threatened, insecure and that his body was shaking” following the confrontation. He also said Mr Rockcliff warned he would “make sure that no one will give you a job anymore” and approached the claimant at his home.
Mr Rockcliff not only denied making these statements to Mr Perez Vargas, but refuted claims that a social media post he made about Michelin trained chefs as “people with sautéed egos who have lost their mojo for the love of cooking and who have overcooked their wallets for fame over food” was about the chef.
The tribunal found that these comments may have led Mr Perez Vargas, or anyone who knew him as an employee of the Pot Kiln, to believe they were about the chef.
Mr Perez Vargas first brought claims against the business in November 2022, three months after he left the Pot Kiln’s employment. He made complaints about unfair dismissal, direct discrimination on the grounds of race and sexual orientation, and harassment related to race and sexual orientation. He also made complaints about notice pay and other money claims.
The court found that Mr Perez Vargas’s complaint about harassment related to race and related to sexual orientation was well-founded and succeeded, as was his claim of being unfairly dismissed.
Judge Gumbiti-Zimuto said that Mr Rockcliff’s conduct was “unwanted” and violated “ the claimant’s dignity and creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading or humiliating and offensive environment for the claimant”.
They added: “because those comments were clearly related to his race, we are satisfied that it related to the protected characteristic of race. And because the comments made reference to the claimant’s sexually harassing all male staff, that it also made reference to his sexual orientation and therefore, in our view, was related to sexual orientation.”
Mr Rockcliff has been ordered to pay a sum of £20,444.24 to Mr Perez Vargas. This accounts for a basic award of £1,142, a compensatory award of £500 as well as £2,073.28 for a loss of earnings post notice period of four weeks.
He received six weeks notice pay of £3,109.92 for the breach of contact, as well as £663.32 for accrued holiday not taken, £821.36 for unpaid wages between 2020 and 2022, as well as £11,000 for injury to feelings and £1,134.36 in interest to that.
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