Worker awarded $15,000 after racist abuse

By Ellen Connolly

November 26, 2006 12:00am
Article from: The Sunday Telegraph

AN Indian woman has been awarded $15,000 after a colleague called her a "lazy, black, Indian bitch" behind her back.

Rama Velagapudi, 55, told the New South Wales Equal Opportunity Tribunal last week that co-worker Leanne Spooner made to remarks to other workers at a pharmaceutical company.

Ms Velagapudi did not hear the comment herself, but claimed she was distressed when she learned of it.

Ms Spooner denied the allegation. She told the court she had walked into an empty aisle and mouthed the words in extreme frustration at Ms Velagapudi's inefficiency.

But last week the tribunal accepted the victim's version of events, saying a number of people had heard the remark.

It ordered the pharmaceutical company Symbion Pharmacy Services (formerly Faulding Healthcare) to pay Ms Velagapudi $5000 compensation for the remark.

She received an additional $10,000 because of the company's failure to handle the complaint "appropriately and reasonably".

Ms Velagapudi migrated from India to Australia in 1999 and became an Australian citizen two years later.

She began working full-time as a storeperson for the company in 2002.

Ms Velagapudi claimed the victimisation began on August 15, 2003 and continued for the next year. She said she felt humiliated and hurt, and took a week of stress leave.

Colleagues stopped talking to her and she was moved to another assembly line.

Ms Velagapudi alleged her hurt was heightened by the company's failure to act appropriately on her complaint.

It did not take her complaint seriously and required her to accept an apology from Ms Spooner that was not genuine, she said.

At the hearing, Ms Spooner agreed she used the word "lazy black bitch" but denied using the word "Indian".

Symbion's defence counsel claimed it was a "single incident involving a remark that was made in private and not said to any other person at the time".

It was claimed this did "not of itself amount to, or prove, unlawful discrimination".

But the tribunal disagreed. It said the injury to Ms Velagapudi was compounded by the fact that her colleagues already knew about it and had been talking about it.

Handing down its judgement last week, the tribunal said there was no dispute that the remark alluded to the victim's race, as it referred to the colour of her skin, and was said in "a derogatory manner".

"The tribunal accepts that once it was made known to Ms Velagapudi, it caused injury to her in that she felt humiliated and distressed."

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,20820621-662,00.html