Victim of anti-Arab slurs awarded $25,000

Dale Mills, Sydney

Forklift driver Mohamed Abdulrahman was awarded $25,000 compensation and legal costs by the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal on August 1 after the tribunal upheld his complaint that he had been subjected to illegal racial discrimination by fellow employees at Sydney's Toll Express. This included being repeatedly addressed as "bomb-chucker" over the workplace's public address system.

Abdulrahman, who was born in Australia to parents who migrated from Lebanon, told the tribunal hearing that things became especially bad whenever Iraq was in the news. He denied having anything to do with the war in Iraq but was repeatedly asked by his manager, "What happened to your cousins?"

Abulrahman testified that in a meeting about a work injury, a union delegate said to him: "Fucking bomb-chucker ... what do you think, you want to go home with $1 million and chuck bombs around Australia?"

The August 4 Sydney Morning Herald reported that Abulrahman "did not lodge a discrimination complaint earlier because he had a mortgage, wife and three children to support and needed his job. However, after 2.5 years, he could not take it any more ...

"When the Anti-Discrimination Board investigated, the company's state manager, Jamie Primmer, said the complaint was without foundation. The workers involved also denied doing anything wrong, and said Mr Abdulrahman had acted inappropriately to another worker. But the union delegate, Les Ponting, agreed under cross-examination that name-calling and racial slurs were common at the plant, and he heard some of the abuse of Mr Abdulrahman."

In its ruling on the case, the tribunal said it would not order the employer to apologise as there would be "little value in an apology that was not genuine". Toll Express has said that it will appeal the decision.

From GLW issue 678