Second Birmingham City Council equalities boss sues for discrimination
A SECOND boss at a crisis-hit equalities department is suing Birmingham City Council for alleged discrimination.
Eileen Daley was manager of Birmingham Partnership Against Racial Harassment when she claims she was treated unfairly.
She has now lodged a case against her former council bosses at Birmingham Employment Tribunal, on the grounds of disability discrimination and unfair dismissal.
The case is due to be heard next week.
Ms Daley is the second manager within equalities to launch legal action against the council on discrimination grounds this year.
In May we revealed that Rajpal Virdee, a former equalities manager for social services, was suing the authority and its Assistant Director for Equalities and Human Resources, Mashuq Ally.
He lodged his claims for race, age, ethnic and disability discrimination at Manchester Employment Tribunal and a hearing was due to take place last month.
But the court agreed to postpone the tribunal after Mr Virdee’s legal team said they planned to lodge further claims.
Ms Daley was the manager of Birmingham Partnership Against Racial Harassment until she left the council sometime last year, it is thought. She had worked for the authority for some years and had considerable previous experience of equalities work.
By coincidence her predecessor, Anthony Tang, also sued the council for discrimination in 2001 and won. Mr Tang, of Chinese origin, was “threatened, bullied and cajoled” by bosses, a court was told at the time.
A tribunal had heard claims that his £26,000-a-year post was scrapped and he faced disciplinary action after refusing to distort statistics to make the extent of race attacks in Birmingham appear worse than they were. Mr Tang claimed he was told to fabricate figures showing harassment had soared 150 per cent in a council bid to justify spending on anti-racism campaigns.
Mr Virdee’s case is now expected to take place within the next few months.
In total, it is understood he will be suing for alleged race, ethnic, age, disability discrimination, sex discrimination and unfair and wrongful discrimination – seven of the eight types of discrimination dealt with by employment tribunals.
Mr Virdee was the £50,000-a-year equalities manager for social services until he “disappeared” from the authority’s headquarters in 2006. He hit the headlines in January when we revealed he had been off work for FOUR years – collecting £175,000 in wages during that time. He has since been fired by letter for alleged gross misconduct, over claims that he may have carried out other employment while off work, allegations he strenuously denied.
The council has said it will vigorously defend his claims at tribunal.
In a statement on Ms Daley’s case, the city council said: “There is a hearing commencing at the Birmingham Employment Tribunal on 13 July 2010. All claims are denied and will be vigorously defended by Birmingham City Council.
“We can also confirm that there was a previous claim brought by Ms Daley against Birmingham City Council, whereupon the Birmingham Employment Tribunal found in the Council’s favour and all of Ms Daley’s claims were dismissed.
‘‘This Judgment will be relied upon at the hearing next week. We can add nothing further to this statement as the matter is imminent and therefore sub judice.”
Ms Daley was unavailable for comment.