By JOHN TROUP
Published: Today
A POLISH cleaner is suing a British firm for £25,000 — claiming her bad English should be recognised as a DISABILITY.
Izabela Klarecka, 30, says she was paid less than the minium wage — because she could not understand a job contract.
She was paid just £3 an hour to clean at a hotel — when the statutory minimum wage is £5.52 an hour.
Izabela is seeking “moral damages” on the grounds she did not understand her employment contract and it amounted to discrimination.
She agreed to be paid £1.84 for each room she cleaned at the Travelodge in Luton, Beds.
But she claims it was impossible to clean three rooms in an hour, as her boss had claimed.
Izabela, from Hatfield, Herts, said: “The employer said we were going to be paid £1.84 per room, and we would be able to clean three rooms in an hour, spending 20 minutes in each room.
“That meant we would be receiving the minimum wage of £5.52 an hour, but it soon emerged cleaning each room actually took about 40 minutes.
“Our pay turned out to be about half the minimum wage.
“When this became clear to us we tried to address the matter.
“But our direct manager, who was Polish, refused to accept our arguments.
“He insisted it was possible to clean a room in 20 minutes.
“He even tried to get his wife to demonstrate this and she didn’t manage it either.”
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Izabela’s husband Tomasz will represent her at an industrial tribunal in Bedford next month.
He hopes to track down more non-English speakers and make further claims against the firm, ISS Facility Services.
Tomasz, 35, said: “Inability to communicate in English is a handicap that disables a person working in Great Britain.
“This wording is in accordance with the definition of disability included in the Disability Discrimination Act.
“I added the disability issue to the case because the injured parties did not speak English.
“It seemed to me that if they had spoken the language they wouldn’t have allowed themselves to be exploited like that.”
ISS said it would not comment on the case before the tribunal begins.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1507522.ece
Published: Today
A POLISH cleaner is suing a British firm for £25,000 — claiming her bad English should be recognised as a DISABILITY.
Izabela Klarecka, 30, says she was paid less than the minium wage — because she could not understand a job contract.
She was paid just £3 an hour to clean at a hotel — when the statutory minimum wage is £5.52 an hour.
Izabela is seeking “moral damages” on the grounds she did not understand her employment contract and it amounted to discrimination.
She agreed to be paid £1.84 for each room she cleaned at the Travelodge in Luton, Beds.
But she claims it was impossible to clean three rooms in an hour, as her boss had claimed.
Izabela, from Hatfield, Herts, said: “The employer said we were going to be paid £1.84 per room, and we would be able to clean three rooms in an hour, spending 20 minutes in each room.
“That meant we would be receiving the minimum wage of £5.52 an hour, but it soon emerged cleaning each room actually took about 40 minutes.
“Our pay turned out to be about half the minimum wage.
“When this became clear to us we tried to address the matter.
“But our direct manager, who was Polish, refused to accept our arguments.
“He insisted it was possible to clean a room in 20 minutes.
“He even tried to get his wife to demonstrate this and she didn’t manage it either.”
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Izabela’s husband Tomasz will represent her at an industrial tribunal in Bedford next month.
He hopes to track down more non-English speakers and make further claims against the firm, ISS Facility Services.
Tomasz, 35, said: “Inability to communicate in English is a handicap that disables a person working in Great Britain.
“This wording is in accordance with the definition of disability included in the Disability Discrimination Act.
“I added the disability issue to the case because the injured parties did not speak English.
“It seemed to me that if they had spoken the language they wouldn’t have allowed themselves to be exploited like that.”
ISS said it would not comment on the case before the tribunal begins.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1507522.ece