'Anger & hurt' | 'Slave' graffiti violated Black warehouse worker's dignity, tribunal rules

A Black worker has won a harassment claim after a disgruntled former employee daubed the word “slave” on a piece of warehouse machinery.

An employment tribunal found that the term, while not deliberately targeted at Seedy Fofana, violated his dignity and created an offensive work environment.

Mr Fofana, who worked as a warehouse operative at Window Widgets Limited from September 2023 until January 2024, brought a claim of race harassment after discovering the words “slave no” written above the number “3” with an arrow pointing downward, on a machine similar to a fork-lift truck.

Although the Employment Tribunal accepted the graffiti was written by a different employee before Mr Fofana joined the company and was intended as a protest against working conditions, it ruled the wording had a racially offensive impact that the employer failed to detect or address.