An Iranian woman who worked on the inventor’s doomed electric car project has won a case for religious discrimination
An engineer who helped to develop an electric car for Britain’s richest man has won claims for religious discrimination and constructive unfair dismissal after a manager told her, “I do not like Muslims.”
Zeinab Alipourbabaie, 39, was a senior electronic engineer at Sir James Dyson’s bases in Wiltshire for four years. She resigned in 2018 after months of harassment and discrimination by a senior technical project manager, Kamaljit Chana, who is also a Conservative councillor in Harrow, northwest London.
Bristol employment tribunal found that in a one-to-one meeting with Alipourbabaie in February 2017, Chana, a Sikh, also said: “Muslims are violent” and “Pakistani men are grooming our girls.”
He excluded her from meetings and emails, criticised her unfairly to the company vice-president and advised against promoting her, the tribunal ruled.
Recalling the effect of Chana’s behaviour, Alipourbabaie, who is Iranian, said last week: “It had a huge impact on my life. I couldn’t sleep. It was like getting hit by a car or having an accident. Something I had no control over but hit me hard.”
Her line manager recommended her three times for promotion without result. The court said her resignation amounted to constructive unfair dismissal.
Because her visa depended on her job with Dyson, she had just eight weeks to find another job before she would have been forced to leave the country. She now works for a leading automotive company.
To resign and bring a case made her nervous. “I felt vulnerable because of that visa situation, because immigrants like me, we’re invited to this country but we have no friends, no family, we have to start from scratch,” Alipourbabaie said.
After an internal investigation found Chana had harassed and bullied her, he was given a final written warning but kept his job. He left this year after the electric car was dropped.
Giving Alipourbabaie’s account of the conversation that began months of harassment, the judgment said: “He asked if she was a Muslim and she replied that she came from a Muslim family ... he said ‘that he did not like Muslims ...
“Mr Chana talked about 9/11 and said his family did not take flights any more because they were scared ... He went on to say Pakistani men are grooming our girls.” Chana denied making the comments, but the tribunal ruled unanimously that Alipourbabaie’s version was “compelling and persuasive”. It noted that Chana did not deny the allegations in his initial grievance interview, saying he could not remember.
Dyson’s promotion system was found not to be discriminatory but the tribunal said it “lacks transparency” with “no formal system for assessing” employees.
Alipourbabaie was headhunted by Dyson in Italy in 2014, where she was working for Whirlpool after completing a master’s degree in Torino. Her family in Iran was not wealthy and she said her undergraduate degree in Tehran was only made possible after her grandmother insisted she take her life savings.
She said on Friday: “Yes, it’s terrible what Kam did to me, it’s terrible what HR did to me — but it’s good that I’m in a good country with a justice system that I trust.”
Her lawyer Leila Moran, of Leigh Day, said: “My client has fought bravely to bring this case to tribunal and the judgment is a powerful moral victory.”
Chana told the hearing: “I had never met someone from Iran before, so I commented that that was interesting and Iran seemed to be in the news a lot.” Last week he added: “My comments were not about whole community groups. This would be entirely unjust.” He said an appeal “is being considered”.
Dyson spent £500m on his electric car before concluding it was not commercially viable last October. The company said it had disciplined Chana for bullying, but had felt unable to rule on comments in a one-to-one conversation a year earlier. It said: “Dyson Automotive demanded a workplace free of discrimination, intimidation and harassment; it did not tolerate any form of unacceptable behaviour and treated any such allegations very seriously. These allegations were investigated fully and disciplinary action was taken against Kamaljit Chana who was found to have acted inappropriately. We have since launched mandatory ‘respect’ training for all our people.”
The Conservative Party said it would investigate if it received a complaint.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i...neer-bw3fl2hnw
An engineer who helped to develop an electric car for Britain’s richest man has won claims for religious discrimination and constructive unfair dismissal after a manager told her, “I do not like Muslims.”
Zeinab Alipourbabaie, 39, was a senior electronic engineer at Sir James Dyson’s bases in Wiltshire for four years. She resigned in 2018 after months of harassment and discrimination by a senior technical project manager, Kamaljit Chana, who is also a Conservative councillor in Harrow, northwest London.
Bristol employment tribunal found that in a one-to-one meeting with Alipourbabaie in February 2017, Chana, a Sikh, also said: “Muslims are violent” and “Pakistani men are grooming our girls.”
He excluded her from meetings and emails, criticised her unfairly to the company vice-president and advised against promoting her, the tribunal ruled.
Recalling the effect of Chana’s behaviour, Alipourbabaie, who is Iranian, said last week: “It had a huge impact on my life. I couldn’t sleep. It was like getting hit by a car or having an accident. Something I had no control over but hit me hard.”
Her line manager recommended her three times for promotion without result. The court said her resignation amounted to constructive unfair dismissal.
Because her visa depended on her job with Dyson, she had just eight weeks to find another job before she would have been forced to leave the country. She now works for a leading automotive company.
To resign and bring a case made her nervous. “I felt vulnerable because of that visa situation, because immigrants like me, we’re invited to this country but we have no friends, no family, we have to start from scratch,” Alipourbabaie said.
After an internal investigation found Chana had harassed and bullied her, he was given a final written warning but kept his job. He left this year after the electric car was dropped.
Giving Alipourbabaie’s account of the conversation that began months of harassment, the judgment said: “He asked if she was a Muslim and she replied that she came from a Muslim family ... he said ‘that he did not like Muslims ...
“Mr Chana talked about 9/11 and said his family did not take flights any more because they were scared ... He went on to say Pakistani men are grooming our girls.” Chana denied making the comments, but the tribunal ruled unanimously that Alipourbabaie’s version was “compelling and persuasive”. It noted that Chana did not deny the allegations in his initial grievance interview, saying he could not remember.
Dyson’s promotion system was found not to be discriminatory but the tribunal said it “lacks transparency” with “no formal system for assessing” employees.
Alipourbabaie was headhunted by Dyson in Italy in 2014, where she was working for Whirlpool after completing a master’s degree in Torino. Her family in Iran was not wealthy and she said her undergraduate degree in Tehran was only made possible after her grandmother insisted she take her life savings.
She said on Friday: “Yes, it’s terrible what Kam did to me, it’s terrible what HR did to me — but it’s good that I’m in a good country with a justice system that I trust.”
Her lawyer Leila Moran, of Leigh Day, said: “My client has fought bravely to bring this case to tribunal and the judgment is a powerful moral victory.”
Chana told the hearing: “I had never met someone from Iran before, so I commented that that was interesting and Iran seemed to be in the news a lot.” Last week he added: “My comments were not about whole community groups. This would be entirely unjust.” He said an appeal “is being considered”.
Dyson spent £500m on his electric car before concluding it was not commercially viable last October. The company said it had disciplined Chana for bullying, but had felt unable to rule on comments in a one-to-one conversation a year earlier. It said: “Dyson Automotive demanded a workplace free of discrimination, intimidation and harassment; it did not tolerate any form of unacceptable behaviour and treated any such allegations very seriously. These allegations were investigated fully and disciplinary action was taken against Kamaljit Chana who was found to have acted inappropriately. We have since launched mandatory ‘respect’ training for all our people.”
The Conservative Party said it would investigate if it received a complaint.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i...neer-bw3fl2hnw
