An employment tribunal has said that it was “deeply concerned” about Home Office contractors who deport people from the UK having used the racist term “cotton pickers” to describe their black colleagues, but threw out a claim of race and disability discrimination. The Home Office uses the contractor Mitie to deport people to destinations including Jamaica, Pakistan, India, Nigeria and Ghana along with European countries and other locations. The escorts are only allowed to do this work if they have received accreditation from the Home Office. In a judgment from the London south employment tribunal (published on 4 June) a claim by a Mitie escort of Pakistani heritage, Muqaddas Zaib, based on race and disability discrimination, was rejected. However, two witnesses who claimed that the racist term “cotton pickers” was used by some staff to refer to some black employees, were found to be “credible and honest” by the tribunal. The term is a racist, derogatory reference to black slaves subjected to forced labour in the southern United States. One of these witnesses, a black detention custody officer manager called Denise Heslop, told the court that another member of staff said to her: “You’re nuttink but a cotton picker.” In her evidence, the second witness, Linda Basiony, a representative for the trade union Community, said: “People would climb into the van and look at the list of jobs that had gone out. Some officers would make the comment: ‘I see that the cotton pickers were busy.’ [The black staff] were referred to as the ‘cotton pickers club’.” Some jobs, such as those where a detainee might be violent or where the case has a high media profile, are deemed complex and can merit bonus payments. Zaib claimed that he was discriminated against on the basis of his race and his disability, neurofibromatosis, which can lead to a smaller body size, because he was not given as many of these complex jobs as other colleagues. Mitie rejected the discrimination claims. Although the tribunal’s judgment found no evidence of race or disability discrimination in the way Zaib was treated by Mitie the judgment stated in relation to use of the term “cotton pickers”: “Whilst the tribunal stops short of concluding that there was a racist culture (within Mitie) it was deeply concerned firstly that such offensive comments were made by employees but also that they appear not to be isolated incidents. It appeared to the tribunal that there was a reluctance on the part of those subject to such banter, to complain.” A Mitie spokesperson said: “We have a zero tolerance approach to any form of discrimination and take all complaints and concerns raised by our employees very seriously. Any claims of discrimination or bullying are fully investigated and our colleagues are regularly reminded of our independent and anonymous whistleblowing hotline should they need to raise any concerns.”