Casino allowed customer requests to be served by white staff

A dealer at a casino has won her claim of race discrimination after her employer allowed customers to request that they only be served by white staff.

The dealer, Ms Tesfagiorgis, was a black British national. She had worked for Aspinalls Club Ltd for 13 years at its casino in Mayfair, London.

The casino’s patrons were wealthy, and the club kept records of their personal preferences.

A profile form for one patron (Mr X) stated that he wanted to be served by “Western looking female staff only”.

Aspinalls’ staff policy stated that in the event of unacceptable behaviour by patrons, dealers should advise them that they could not behave in that manner and then leave the situation and call for a manager.

Tesfagiorgis related several incidents of alleged race discrimination, including:

• In June 2015 Aspinalls refused to allow her to swap a shift with a white colleague because the white colleague was one of the preferred dealers for Mr X, who was playing in the casino that day;
• In June 2015, Tesfagiorgis and another black female colleague were told to remain in the staff room, and not go to the casino floor, because Mr X was playing;
• In September 2017, a patron told Tesfagiorgis that he wanted “a white dealer”. Two managers told the patron that his request was unacceptable and he apologised. Tesfagiorgis discussed the incident with a senior manager and suggested a forum for staff to discuss racist incidents. The manager agreed it was a good idea, but it was never implemented;
• In December 2019, shortly after training on appropriate workplace behaviour, a patron expressed a preference for dealers who were “females with fair skin”. Tesfagiorgis and another black female colleague, were on duty but were told that a white male dealer would deal with the patron instead of them. After this incident Tesfagiorgis met with a senior manager who assured her that he would investigate the matter to find out why the company policy had not been followed. He stated that the managers involved in the incident were junior and inexperienced.

Tesfagiorgis was then on sick leave from 10 December 2019 to 31 March 2020 with stress. She received sick pay until that date, in excess of her contractual entitlement, and was placed on furlough due to the Covid pandemic on 4 April.

She received statutory sick pay for the first few days of April. She subsequently took voluntary redundancy on 31 October 2020.

Aspinalls denied that there had been discrimination and submitted that it had taken reasonable steps to prevent unlawful discrimination.

The Employment Tribunal held that Tesfagiorgis had suffered direct race discrimination in relation to:

• The incidents in June 2015 and December 2019 – the reason she was not brought on to deal with the patron was because she was black. The patron’s request should not have been accommodated. The actions of the manager on duty contradicted what was said in the unacceptable patron behaviour policy.
• The refusal of a shift swap in June 2015 – the request was refused because the patron wanted white female dealers.

The tribunal held that having a policy was not enough; it had to be implemented. The training was inadequate to show managers what they should do in response to a discriminatory request from a patron.

Aspinalls acknowledged that racist incidents occurred regularly, therefore for the defence to succeed it needed to provide more specific and targeted training on how to deal with racist/sexist behaviour by patrons.

Further, Tesfagiorgis’ suggestion of a working group to discuss those issues was a reasonable step but was not taken.

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Tesfagiorgis v Aspinalls Club Ltd
Employment Tribunal
30 October 2021
Judge Elliott;
R Baber;
C Brayson