A UK court has ruled that Apple unfairly fired an employee at one of its London stores.
The tech giant's investigation was "poor and incomplete" according to an employment tribunal judge, despite evidence of a racist comment being made by Timothy Jeffries to a co-worker.
As per Bloomberg's report, Jeffries' employment was terminated but the company did not have a zero-tolerance policy in place for discrimination and harassment. According to the ruling, Apple needed to set out a defined zero-tolerance policy and consequences for breaching it.
Apple employee wins tribunal case despite inappropriate comments
Despite there being no such policy, the judge said:
“In this case, there was ample evidence that there was a culture in the repair room which embraced explicit language and some jokes which may be considered inappropriate, whether they referred to race or other sensitive issues."
Jeffries was not the only staff member accused of inappropriate comments, and Apple was investigating the repair room culture.
According to the judgement, Jeffries said "See you in nine months, as long as you lot don’t release another deadly disease on the world,” to a colleague of Chinese heritage, who made an official complaint.
Evidence suggested that the comment was taken as a joke by the colleague in question, as well as other staff before Jeffries was fired after an investigation - but the judge ruled “No reasonable employer would dismiss somebody by relying on the application of a zero-tolerance policy, which does not exist."
“I’m very happy with the outcome,” Jeffries commented. “It’s important to read the judgment as a whole to understand the case in context.”
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