A setback for bigotry

 

Here's yet another extract from my memoirs, available at https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-obscure-footnote-in-trade-union-history.

This concerns a case which was one of the first in which an employment tribunal had to consider the interaction between the (then) recently passed legislation against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, and the (then) similarly recent legislation against religious discrimination;

“One weekday afternoon, around this time, I was walking down Albion Hill (the steepest hill in Brighton) when I got a telephone message from one of our shop stewards. She was very concerned about something she had seen the other shop steward in her building doing.

He was a new shop steward, having recently put his name forward for this position. I didn’t know him (I am not sure that I had met him at this point) but what I learned from his fellow shop steward (whom I knew to be a reliable activist) gave me some cause for concern.

It transpired that Mr Apelogun-Gabriels (whom I will break with the normal practice of these reminiscences and name since his name is already in the public domain in relation to this matter) had been permitted to set up a Christian prayer group at the office.

He had then copied a leaflet and distributed it, not only to colleagues who attended the prayer group but more widely throughout the office. His fellow shop steward saw a copy of the leaflet and found that it was a vicious homophobic tract, which she immediately advised him to cease distributing and destroy.

When he refused to do this she telephoned me as Branch Secretary to alert me to the problem. Not being at work, I had no immediate means of contacting Mr Apelogun-Gabriels. I knew what the Council would do (and thought that they would be justified in so doing).

I wasn’t wrong. The Council suspended Mr Apelogun-Gabriels, having received complaints from staff (some of whom were - quite properly - supported by his fellow UNISON shop steward in making the complaints).

I arranged to meet Mr Apelogun-Gabriels urgently and, shortly thereafter, met him on a day when I was caring for my young daughter, whom I sat at one end of the office with some pens and paper (and a swivel chair for entertainment) whilst I discussed the case with him.

He told me he felt that he was justified in publishing a leaflet which consisted entirely of extracts from the Bible (which it did) and, when I told him that - if he apologised sincerely - I thought we could get him off with a Final Warning, he refused to contemplate this.

I particularly recollect that, once he had left the office following our lengthy and difficult meeting my daughter summed things up well. “Daddy,” she said, “he was a very shouty man.” I agreed with her and took her for a pizza in Brixton.

Mr Apelogun-Gabriels subsequently decided that he did not want me to represent him as he could not be sure that I was heterosexual, so I referred him to our Regional Organiser. He wouldn’t take her advice any more than mine though, and the Council dismissed him.

I very rarely approve of any employer dismissing a worker, but this case was an exception - and I was pleased to learn that his employment tribunal claim for religious discrimination failed. Religion is no excuse for homophobia.”