A software program engineer has misplaced a discrimination case towards IBM after claiming his colleague’s use of the phrase ‘blacklist’ was racist.
Taiyyib Azam, 38, accused his co-worker on the pc big of bigotry through the use of the phrase throughout a workforce name within the aftermath of the George Floyd homicide within the USA.
The cybersecurity knowledgeable – a part of a workforce codenamed X Pressure Pink – additionally made a collection of different ‘puzzling’ accusations, together with that his managers have been performing ‘black magic’ and ‘voodoo’ on him.
He made widespread and unsubstantiated allegations of racism towards his colleagues in a bid to ‘assist his views that each particular person he interacted with was racist’.
Mr Azam was primarily based at IBM’s UK workplace in Warwick, Warwickshire. He tried suing the US agency at an employment tribunal for race, incapacity and spiritual discrimination and victimisation.
The software program engineer, who represented himself over the 16-day tribunal, claimed he was the sufferer of greater than 30 acts of discrimination however the tribunal dismissed all of them.
The tribunal dominated all of Mr Azam’s allegations have been unfounded and his blacklist accusation ‘contrived as a solution to bolster his personal case’.
In her ruling, employment decide Geraldine Flood acknowledged: ‘We discover that though this grievance was confused and adopted a scattergun strategy, that the claimant did have a real perception that the explanation he was being handled otherwise in his notion, was as a result of he was Asian.’
Taiyyib Azam, 38, accused his co-worker on the pc big of bigotry through the use of the phrase ‘blacklist’ throughout a workforce name within the aftermath of the George Floyd homicide within the US
The tribunal in Birmingham heard Mr Azam – who was born and grew up within the metropolis – started working for IBM in October 2015 as a cyber marketing consultant in certainly one of its cybersecurity departments, incomes £55,000.
The listening to was informed difficulties started only a yr after he began working at IBM when he began claiming he deserved a promotion.
Over the next years, Mr Azam persistently claimed he was being denied promotions and alternatives to additional his profession on account of his race.
He stated: ‘I genuinely imagine is to do with the color of my pores and skin I’m being held again and discriminated towards.
‘I’m the one Asian particular person within the group I’ve seen different proficient people of Indian heritage go away or be pressured out for related causes.’
Nevertheless, the tribunal heard there have been Asian staff who superior to the ‘highest’ positions at IBM and that Mr Azam merely had ‘unrealistic expectations of his personal development’.
He complained of ‘psychological bullying’ and in February 2019 he claimed ‘IBM was finishing up a type of voodoo on him’ which broken his psychological well being.
The identical month he alleged his supervisor was ‘performing some black magic on him’ to intentionally goal him.
Mr Azam, who’s Muslim, argued unsuccessfully that one colleague known as him a ‘f****** Indian’ twice and in addition inaccurately acknowledged he needed to work on Eid when he was actually off. The tribunal dismissed one other declare {that a} co-worker ‘humiliated’ him.
Mr Azam complained a colleague ‘ghosted’ him and alleged he was being ‘blasted’ by one supervisor when he wasn’t.
In Could 2020, across the time of the homicide of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Mr Azam stated he was racially attacked.
Employment Choose Flood stated using the phrase was ‘solely innocuous’.
Taiyyib Azam was primarily based at IBM’s UK workplace (pictured) in Warwick, Warwickshire. He tried suing the US agency at an employment tribunal for race, incapacity and spiritual discrimination
Choose Flood stated: ‘Mr Azam complained about [a colleague] making a remark about blacklisting on a workforce name which he took as a reference to the George Floyd homicide.
‘We heard proof from quite a few IBM’s witnesses about what these phrases imply, specifically that blacklisting is the place a selected checklist of IP addresses that aren’t allowed to connect with a system is in place and thus any deal with not on that checklist might be rejected.
‘Mr Azam himself additionally used such phrases in communications.
‘We discovered this a puzzling allegation as the one reference to blacklisting presently we noticed in messages was made by Mr Azam and there’s no proof that [the colleague] was concerned in any of those.
‘Nonetheless we discover that [the colleague] can also be more likely to have used the time period blacklisting round this time as he acknowledged its use extra typically.
‘We don’t discover that there was something sinister in the way in which he or anybody used the phrase ‘blacklisting’ or ‘black’ as steered by Mr Azam.
‘We weren’t happy that there was any hyperlink in any respect to the George Floyd homicide on any point out of this phrase on today and it was utilized by all, together with Mr Azam, in a purely enterprise context.
‘Our view is that this allegation has been constructed after the occasion by him as a solution to bolster his declare and to assist his views that each particular person he interacted with was racist.’
Throwing out his declare, the decide added: ‘We had difficulties in accepting the credibility of the proof that Mr Azam gave on many points.
‘He had a bent to concentrate on sure incidents and at instances was exaggerating and adorning the importance of those incidents within the total narrative.
‘We struggled with the plausibility and reliability of a lot of his proof.’
The decide added there was no proof that ‘race performed any half in promotion selections’.
