Pole loses discrimination fight against Swedish zoo
Published: 21 Jan 13 11:39 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/45732/20130121/
A Polish employee who took a Swedish zoo to court for discrimination has lost his case as the district court ruled on Monday that he had reported the alleged crimes too late.
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He claimed that the zoo was run like an "old-fashioned feudal system," with a strict top-down structure.
In a recording of his dismissal, played up in court in December 2012, a manager is heard screaming at Wilk:
"You think you're better than others. Take your things and go to hell. You're behaving like a damn monkey."
Wilk claimed that he and other Poles worked 10-hour days without a weekend or time off while the zoo's Swedish staff worked a regular 40-hour week.
While Swedes were paid 14,000 kronor ($2,160) per month, the Polish workers got 6,800 kronor plus room and board, he said.
"I was discriminated on the basis of my nationality. But everyone who works with discrimination issues knows that it is hard to prove. Discrimination is hidden," Wilk told the Barometern newspaper.
Wilk was asking for 1 million kronor in damages, but now that the district court has ruled that the alleged crimes had passed the statute of limitation, he will be obliged to pay the zoo's legal bills.
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You sure these weren't lazy Swedes having a fika at your plant in Hoboken?
newjesreyballs: Suggest exercising a bit of caution when slinging about stereotypes, especially if you don't want them thrown back at you.
Too bad he lost, did they at least toss him some peanuts in consolation?
Given the fact that the recording of the dimissal exists, I am tempted to believe that this recording may have been arranged by the one who was dismissed, and who may have behaved on the day of dismissial in a way to illicit exceptional anger on the part of the manager doing the dimissing. One would do this if one was planning to blackmail the zoo for a million kronor, for example.
Agree that he should have been informed that his complaint was too late, but is is not impossible that the judge pulled out this 'complaint-was-too-late' technicality if he/she suspected that this was a blackmail attempt, and the judge felt he/she could do nothing else to protect the zoo from that blackmail.