A tribunal has heard that an iconic casino in London did not stop its wealthy patrons from racially abusing employees with immunity and segregated black staff members from gamblers who insisted on being served by white dealers.
Mayfair-based Crown London Aspinalls has been taken to court by Semhar Tesfagiorgis for race and sex discrimination.
The 41-year-old who has been an inspector and dealer at the casinos from 2007 to 2020, alleges that the working environment was hostile and demeaning at the time she was employed there. Ms Tesfagiorgis claims that she and her black colleagues have been subject to racial slurs by affluent casino patrons, who have also used the N-word, called them stupid and compared black people to gorillas. According to the lawsuit’s allegations, the casino not only failed to prevent such behaviour but also favoured rich patrons’ requests to not have black staff members at their tables.
On July 15th, the plaintiff started giving evidence at the London Central employment tribunal. In her witness statement, Ms Tesfagiorgis said that she has tried to report every time she or her coworkers have faced racism and sexism hoping that the respondents would have addressed the matter and stopped tolerating such behaviour from casino patrons. However, she has been only been receiving excuses made on behalf of the patrons as part of the attempts to belittle their offensive conduct.
Several Instances of Racial and Sexual Discrimination from Affluent Casino Patrons Claimed
As heard by the tribunal, the first instance of such racially and sexually abusive behaviour happened on the plaintiff’s second day of work, in 2007. At the time, she and a colleague of hers, Fiona Esoko, were called the N-word by an affluent customer of the casino. Both she and her colleague were removed from the gaming floor after Ms Esoko confronted the patron, and their requests for the casino to bar the player from entering the venue’s gaming floor were rejected.
Two years later, the same casino customer used racist language when communicating with Ms Esoko again and demanded to be served by a different dealer. The casino once again favoured the request by asking a white male dealer to step in.
Ms Tesfagiorgis said there was another occurrence of racism and sexism in June 2015, when she initially refused to swap her shifts because a patron had said they preferred “white female dealers only” and her original shifts would involve contact with the person. As it was heard by the tribunal, John Bruns, a casino manager tried to keep her and a black colleague away from a casino customer because of their preference for white female dealers. Ms Tesfagiorgis and her co-worker were also segregated from a customer who specifically asked for a white female dealer in 2019.
Amond the other claims of the casino worker in her lawsuit, was a denial of a request for weekends off for childcare, while the similar request of a white male colleague was favoured.
All the allegations are being denied by Crown London Aspinalls, which is currently owned by the Australian gambling giant Crown Resorts. The casino claims that the patron responsible for the incidents in 2007 and 2009 was spoken to in 2007 and at the time of the second occurrence of their racist behaviour in November 2009 was banned from the casino. Also, it denies the claims that either of the complaints in 2015 were associated with discrimination. As for the incident in 2019, the casino categorised the fact a black dealer was sent away from a table as an “error of judgement” but claims that the incident was then thoroughly and promptly dealt with.
- Author
Olivia Cole
