Racist trade union encouraged me to drop tribunal, claims teacher

Kamaljit Kaur went to the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) complaining that fellow teachers were victimising her because of her Indian origins.

The 48-year-old claims an official of the union tried to get her to drop plans to take Edinburgh city council to an employment tribunal.

Mrs Kaur, who taught English as an additional language at a primary school in the capital, claims the EIS would not have given that advice to a white teacher.

The former teacher at Sciennes Primary is taking the EIS – which represents some 50,000 teachers – and three employees to an employment tribunal claiming race discrimination.

Mrs Kaur said the problems began in 2005 when she raised concerns about a Muslim pupil being bullied.

She alleges that following the incident, she was exposed to a “hostile working environment” and that she was discriminated against as she tried to progress in her career.

Mrs Kaur told the tribunal that she went to EIS official Colin McKay for support.

She said Mr McKay became difficult to get hold of and that he offered her “poor” advice.

“He [Colin McKay] rang me up saying that for mediation to be successful, I needed to drop the [employment tribunal complaint] and I remember him talking about costs as well, and I believe this was poor advice,” she said.

“I also raised an act of race discrimination because they were standing me up to fail. There was no way that the mediation was going to work.

“Instead, he was wanting me to drop the [employment tribunal complaint] which was in my best interests.”

Asked by employment judge Rosie Sorell why she thought this meant she was being discriminated against because of her race, Mrs Kaur replied: “Because I feel that he wouldn’t have asked anyone else to do that. He was meant to be giving me legal advice to help and support me.”

Instead, she claimed, the advice was “going to disadvantage” her.

She went on: “Would he have advised any EIS member to drop their [employment tribunal complaint]?

“He said it more than once and on quite a number of occasions to drop the [complaint] which would have been to my detriment. Would he have said that to anyone else?”

Mrs Kaur has also accused two other EIS officials, David McGinty and Andrew Morrice, of discriminating against her because of her race.

Mrs Kaur, who was born in Britain and is a UK citizen, is already in the middle of a separate employment tribunal against Edinburgh city council, which involves 61 allegations against 15 employees, including race discrimination.

In both cases, she is being represented by her husband, Dr Prim Singh.

Dr Singh, a scientist who worked on the Dolly the Sheep project, recently relaunched his own race discrimination claim against the world-famous Roslin Institute.

Dr Singh won a claim of unfair dismissal against the organisation five years ago but his discrimination allegations were rejected. Now the 45-year-old has gone to the Court of Session to try to persuade Scotland’s top judges that the employment tribunal made a mistake.

If he succeeds, the Indian-born scientist will start new legal proceedings against the institute, which made headlines when it cloned Dolly.

His wife’s hearing against the EIS continues.