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Shout! Youth Theatre Performance

Shout! Youth Theatre performed their play Foreigner Bloody Foreigner last night (Tuesday 27th November) at Corby Trades and Labour Club to a packed audience. The twenty young people had developed the play from talking to people in their local community about their thoughts about migration into Corby. The play covered issues of the history of migration into Corby, Asylum, immigration legislation and economic migrations. one member of the audience said:

Great show, ... funny, clear and effective... First time I'd seen Shout! group they really were good, thought it would be a bit boring but I was engrossed throughout. (Even with the power cut!!!!). Funny, informative, touching.

Members of the audience who included local teachers and community activists made a call for work such as this to be used in Northamptonshire schools to tackle racism and promote community cohesion.

Northants CEO Speaks to NREC

On the evening of the 19th November, the New Chief Executive of the County Council, Katherine Kerswell, addressed a General Meeting of Northamptonshire Racial Equality Council. Katherine spoke to the meeting about the national direction of equalities and human rights work and some of the challenges facing local government. She shared her views about the challenges for Northamptonshire given the extensive growth that was being planned for the County and discussed the concerns and potential opportunities that existed as services in the County Council were re-engineered. She highlighted her concerns about the Comprehensive Spending Review 3 year settlement for Northamptonshire.

Questions from the floor requested Katherine Kerswell to take on the mantle of Equalities champion for the County and also to ensure that Hate Incident reporting and monitoring systems functioned since they were currently "chaotic". Katherine also answered questions about the corporate parenting of black and minority ethnic children in care.

Gilly Anglin-Jarrett, Chair of Northamptonshire Racial Equality Council, closed the meeting saying that she was looking forward to better scrutiny of what was being delivered to Northamptonshire·s communities and better multi-agency working with NREC to deliver and environment of zero tolerance to racial inequalities and inequalities generally.

Talk Talk Direct Limited Guilty of Racial Discrimination

Click here to view the full story from the Northamptonshire Chronicle and Echo.

A Bedford Employment Tribunal has found Talk Talk Direct Limited, who are part of the Carphone Warehouse Group Plc, guilty of racial discrimination.

In a unanimous decision, the Tribunal ruled that Chetankumar Meshram, a Northampton man of Indian origin had been racially discriminated against. Mr Meshram normally works in the Northampton office of Talk Talk Direct Limited and along with other workers was selected to work in India as a Subject Matter Expert (SME), who would help in the training of Indian workers in India. Mr Meshram was sent home early back to the UK after working only 3 weeks into an 8 week secondment to New Delhi in India. The Tribunal concluded that Mr Meshram was sent back to England because his accent was not "English enough". Bedford Employment Tribunal upheld Mr Meshrams Claim and found that he had suffered both direct and indirect racial discrimination.

Mr Meshram said: "I am happy that the Employment Tribunal has found in my favour, I was very embarrassed about being sent back from India to the UK because of my Indian accent. I hope that this ruling will encourage people to select employees to carry out work based on their skills and knowledge regardless of what country they live or work in".

The decision of the Tribunal was reached after a 3-day hearing at which Christopher Fray of Northamptonshire Racial Equality Council represented Mr Meshram.

Mr Fray said today: "Mr Meshram is an extremely friendly, intelligent, and efficient worker, it is sad that he has had to endure embarrassment and humiliation purely because he has an Indian accent. This case delivers a clear message to the community that preconceived ideas about a person’s intelligence or ability should not be judged by the type of accent which they speak with. Other employers should take note that when they select people in England or abroad to work within call centres it is a worker’s ability to help customers and not the type of accent that they speak with which should determine their selection. This case also highlights that race discrimination cases can still be won at Employment Tribunals".

Mr Meshram approached Northamptonshire Racial Equality Council in January 2007 and accessed a free service to take forward his case of discrimination. Northamptonshire Racial Equality Council last year supported seventy-four victims of racial discrimination to seek justice for their unfair treatment.

For further information contact Christopher Fray, Northamptonshire Racial Equality Council, c/o NACO, 117-121 Kettering Road, Northampton NN1 4AZ.

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BNP Briefing

Holocaust Memorial Events 2005

Northamptonshire REC News

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Local News (Links)

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Black History Month 2003

Discrimination Law Briefings

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