01-07-2025
Shop worker who claimed he was left out of birthday whip-rounds loses racism claim
'I never saw a foreigner get flowers or presents,' the worker told a tribunal last month
A shop worker who claimed racial discrimination saw him excluded as a recipient of workplace whip-rounds organised for those celebrating birthdays has lost his case.
'I never saw a foreigner get flowers or presents,' the worker told a tribunal last month.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has rejected a complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1998 by the worker, Artur Czopek, against TJX Ireland Unlimited in a decision published today.
The company, which trades under the TK Maxx brand, had denied allegations of discrimination, harassment and victimisation brought by Mr Czopek, a Polish man working as a part-time sales assistant at one of the firm's shops in Newbridge, Co Kildare since 2017.
Presenting his own case at a hearing last month, Mr Czopek told the tribunal that an assistant manager was in the practice of arranging voluntary collections among staff to go towards gifts to colleagues for birthdays or significant events at the store.
Mr Czopek said he contributed to these collections, but was 'never selected' on his birthday.
Stock image
Today's News in 90 Seconds - July 1st
'She always selected Irish employees, and at no time was a non-Irish national the beneficiary of a collection,' Mr Czopek told the WRC.
A document presented to the WRC by the employer set out 17 collections done at the workplace from 2020 onward, marking 11 birthdays and six work anniversaries. Gifts were given for 18th, 30th, 40th, 50th and 65th birthdays, and to mark increments of 5, 10 and 15 years' service, the tribunal was told.
Mr Czopek told the WRC that after complaining to the store manager, Scott Cooper in July or August 2024 he was assured the practice would cease, but it didn't.
Cross-examining the complainant, counsel for the respondent Tiernan Lowey BL, appearing instructed by Hayes Solicitors LLP, put it to Mr Czopek that the collections were only done to mark 'milestone birthdays or events'.
Mr Czopek said: 'I turned 40 and nothing happened. No, only selected people were receiving presents.'
However, he agreed that the practice of doing the whip-rounds only started in 2020 and that he turned 40 in 2019.
Mr Lowey put three examples of other workers at the store who got presents funded by the collections practice to Mr Czopek. These including a Latvian woman, a Polish woman, and a Russian man, he said.
'I don't deny these,' Mr Czopek said.
After complaining, Mr Czopek said, he found that his usual Sunday shifts were cut, he was given 'unusual work' and that it took longer to get approval for bathroom breaks.
Mr Czopek further alleged he was being harassed on the basis of his nationality by Mr Cooper during a four-week medical absence from work, when he was expected to report in weekly.
Mr Czopek also claimed that there were 'no foreigners' being employed at the store since May 2024, but later qualified his position and said that since Mr Cooper took over, 'less non-nationals are employed'.
Mr Cooper said hiring across all nationalities 'continues as normal' and denied that there was 'any fall-off in the recruitment of non-Irish nationals' since he took charge of the store.
In her decision, adjudicator Bríd Deering wrote: 'The evidence shows that the occasions celebrated are objectively understood as milestone events and the beneficiaries of the collections were of various nationalities, not just Irish employees.'
She wrote that Mr Czopek had failed to establish facts that would back up an inference of racial discrimination in connection with the practice of gift collections.
Ms Deering, accepted the company's position that all of Mr Czopek's complaints were 'assertions unsupported by evidence' and rejected his case in its entirety.
