Work

‘Culture of racism’ behind demotion of Indian manager who hit alleged shoplifter, WRC hears

Sayed Baqur-Hussain admits punching man he said was making off with stolen meat, but said he was acting in self-defence

The company has accused Sayed Baqur-Hussain of taking the law into his own hands to “avenge” his colleague – and because the alleged shoplifter had called him a “Paki paedo” when he was intercepted at the Tesco in the Jervis Shopping Centre. Stock photograph: Getty Images

Stephen Bourke
Tue Dec 12 2023 - 13:04

A “culture of racism” at a major security firm is behind the demotion of an Indian manager who was stripped of his responsibilities for punching an alleged serial shoplifter, Siptu has told the Workplace Relations Commission.

The claim was made at a hearing into a complaint under the Employment Equality Act by the ex-manager, Sayed Baqur-Hussain, against One Complete Solutions Ltd, a managed services firm which employs hundreds in its security division as a contractor to clients including Irish Rail and Tesco.

Mr Baqur-Hussain admits punching a “well-known shoplifter” who he said was making off with stolen meat on August 30th, 2022. However, he said he was acting in self-defence after the man was racially abusive, made a death threat and struck a security officer.

The company has accused Mr Baqur-Hussain of taking the law into his own hands to “avenge” his colleague – and because the alleged shoplifter had called him a “Paki paedo” when he was intercepted at the Tesco in the Jervis Shopping Centre in Dublin 1.

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Mr Baqur-Hussain told the tribunal he and another security manager caught up with a man and woman on an escalator who had been followed by a security officer after he watched them fill a pram and a bag with meat and leave the supermarket without paying.

“He started to abuse me using the racist language, Paki paedo, Paki paedo,” Mr Baqur-Hussain said of the alleged serial shoplifter, referred to at hearing as Mr X.

“Try to come out, I’ll kick the shit out of you, you Paki paedo,” the man went on – Mr Baqur-Hussain saying he regarded this as a “life threat” – describing Mr X as “six foot plus” in height.

Mr X then “slapped” the security officer, breaking the man’s glasses and causing the officer’s head to strike Mr Baqur-Hussain in the face, the complainant said.

“As a self-defence, I hit him back. I don’t get into this type of incident, but this is a life threat at the time,” he said.

Mr Baqur-Hussain said that during the melée he was kicked and punched in the face as all three OCS staff on the scene attempted to grab the man, but that they eventually withdrew because the man “wanted to fight more and more”.

Gardaí did not arrive for another 45 minutes to an hour, by which time the suspects were gone, he said.

He attended hospital before taking a planned holiday and certified sick leave, but was served with notice of a disciplinary investigation on his return. A disciplinary officer took the view that Mr Hussain was guilty of gross misconduct for punching the suspect, a finding upheld on appeal.

The complainant told company investigators he felt “a punch was coming” when he struck the alleged shoplifter and that he feared the man “could have had a knife”, the tribunal heard.

However, the company investigation concluded that Mr Baqur-Hussein “assaulted” Mr X, the tribunal was told.

He received a final written warning and a demotion from account manager to security guard. The security officer was also placed on a final written warning, but disciplinary proceedings against the other account manager, who was not Indian, ended at the investigation stage with no sanction, the tribunal was told.

“[The other account manager] hasn’t been sanctioned anything where he was fully involved in the incident except that I was hitting [Mr X],” Mr Baqur-Hussain said. “It’s a clear case of a different race,” he added.

“I haven’t returned to work because of the demotion I got. In this career you could not go further,” he said.

Naledi Bisiwe of IBEC, who appeared on behalf of the firm, said Mr Baqur-Hussain and the security guard were sanctioned based on the findings of investigations which had found no wrongdoing on the part of the other non-Indian manager on the scene.

She put it to Mr Baqur-Hussain that he had failed to de-escalate the incident with Mr X as the company’s training and policies required.

“Why did you take it in hands to hit him? He had not hit you, he had hit your fellow – you decided to avenge your fellow,” she told the complainant.

“You’re using the word ‘revenge’. It wasn’t revenge, it was self-defence,” Mr Baqur-Hussain said.

Ms Bisewe said the complainant had acknowledged he “did not comply with [his] own training and expectations, though the complainant disagreed, stating that it was the only time in his 12.5 years in retail security where he had experienced that degree of aggression from a suspected shoplifter.

Nicola Coleman of the SIPTU Workers’ Rights Centre said her second witness, Przemyslaw Pindel, was “a witness to to a culture of racism within the organisation”, having worked for three years in its head office as a rostering administrator for the security division from 2019 to 2022.

Ms Bisewe failed in a bid to prevent further evidence being heard by the tribunal – having argued the WRC had no right to “go into a broad investigation” beyond any alleged racism experienced by Mr Baqur-Hussain.

Ms Coleman said: “When discrimination takes place, nobody’s going to put something in an email that demonstrates their racism or that their racism is overt.”

Mr Pindel said things were “really toxic” among the group of OCS account managers, during his time at the firm’s head office, with “fighting between managers, we didn’t act like one company”.

“The most outrageous situation was at the end of March 2021 or first half of April 2021. I was on the phone with an account manager. [He] screamed: ‘Shut the f*** up you foreign c***. There was a moment of silence. He said: ‘Oh Przemyslaw, not you, this c*** here.”

He said he didn’t know whether it was a joke or not, but that he knew the security guard he heard on the other end of the line had sought a transfer away from the Tesco site where that account manager was in charge shortly afterwards.

On another occasion, the security director “humiliated” him by shutting his office door while he was speaking on the phone – telling him: “Your voice irritates me,” he said.

He said company policy forbade him from assigning Mr Baqur-Hussain or other Indian managers a security officer to cover shifts on the Tesco account if it meant paying overtime. “Strictly, absolutely no,” he said.

“When an Irish manager needs to cover something it would be covered, no issues,” he said.

Mr Pindel said he emailed with the OCS director of security at one point voicing concerns about the assignment of staff on overtime, only for the director to phone him and tell him it was not his “role to pay attention to any regulations”.

“She was threatening me – if I point out wrong things going in the company my position would be in danger,” he said.

When Ms Bisewe put it to him in cross-examination that the firm had some client sites it classified as “priority” locations, Mr Pindel said: “Not really, I would say this was provided by the managers. Some managers, their sites were priority, other managers, their sites were not priority.”

The Ibec rep also told Mr Pindel he had a duty to use the company’s internal procedures to raise matters of concern.

“Everything sounds great on paper. I was just simply afraid even if I made a complaint, it turns against me,” the witness replied. “If I complain to HR if I have a problem with a contract manage – and to be honest, an Irish contract manager – it’s going to turn against me,” he said.

“Thinking about it now, I feel really bad not doing anything – I feel like a part of it I’m very sorry I didn’t act before. I was too afraid,” Mr Pindel added.

Two more former employees of the firm will be called into evidence by the trade union when the case resumes in the new year, including the security officer sanctioned over the fight with the alleged shoplifter.

Ms Bisiwe has indicated that five or six witnesses will testify on the management side.

Adjudicator Máire Mulcahy has directed the press not to publish the names of any individuals referred to in the case unless and until they give direct evidence themselves.

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