Top fashion house Louis Vuitton is being sued over racism claims after a boss at a flagship store allegedly told an African employee: \u201cBlack people are slaves who eat dirt off the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sales associate Oliver Koffi claims he was in a stock room packing a pair of shoes for a customer when his manager began the shocking race rant in front of stunned staff.<\/p>\n
He alleged that the manager called Barack Obama a \u201cmuppet\u201d and said America would be better off with \u201cMiss Piggy\u201d as its president because \u201cMuslim people… don\u2019t eat pork\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Koffi says he was left humiliated by the \u201cblack slaves\u201d slur while working at the label\u2019s store in Central London.<\/p>\n
Details of the allegations emerged in papers which will be presented to a Central London Employment Tribunal on July 18.<\/p>\n
Mr Koffi is suing Louis Vuitton for racist discrimination and harassment.<\/p>\n
He claims his manager\u2019s tone of voice was \u201ccold and serious\u201d as he made the comments during a discussion on the origins of the English language with him and three other members of staff in December last year.<\/p>\n
Mr Koffi said: \u201cDuring this discussion, my manager quite randomly stated that \u2018black people are slaves and eat dirt off the floor\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis comment was grossly offensive and extremely humiliating.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis \u00adreference to slavery in this day and age with regards to black people is quite frankly revolting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Koffi was a contract worker at the Louis Vuitton Townhouse at London\u2019s iconic Selfridges department store at the time of the incident.<\/p>\n
He says he recorded the offensive comments on tape after concerns over the manager\u2019s alleged \u201cracist conduct\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cHe went on a rant about black people and other races and religions. He jumped from subject to subject, making comments about other races and religions. He made comments about Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of his comments were derogatory and a clear illustration of his prejudices towards other races and religions.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis comments were offensive and degrading. I confronted him about his statement that \u2018black people are slaves and eat dirt off the floor\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him that I was offended by his comment. He did not deny making the comment. He apologised and claimed it was a \u2018joke\u2019. It was not a joke at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Koffi says the manager, who left his job following a disciplinary proceeding, had previously questioned him about his nationality, asking, \u201cwhere are you originally from?\u201d and often referred to customers by their skin colour.<\/p>\n
He alleges that the manager\u2019s frequent remarks about Asian people and his comments about some Louis Vuitton products being \u201cs***\u201d because they were \u201cmade in China\u201d created a \u201chostile and intimidating\u201d working environment.<\/p>\n
His solicitor Lawrence Davies, of Equal Justice solicitors, said: \u201cThe case will set the 21st century bar as to what employers have to do to prevent racism in the workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Louis Vuitton accepts that the racist comment was made but defends the claim on the basis the company had taken all reasonably practicable steps to prevent the racist comment.<\/p>\n
High-end fashion has recently faced a barrage of racism claims, with models Naomi Campbell and Imam supporting worldwide diversity campaigns.<\/p>\n
Yesterday a spokeswoman for Louis Vuitton said: \u201cLouis Vuitton has a zero-tolerance policy to harassment of any kind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis reported sentiment is in total violation of the Louis Vuitton Ethical charter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis issue was investigated, and the manager in question no longer works within the company.\u201d – The Daily Mirror<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Top fashion house Louis Vuitton is being sued over racism claims after a boss at a flagship store allegedly told an African employee: \u201cBlack people are slaves who eat dirt off the floor.\u201d Sales associate Oliver Koffi claims he was in a stock room packing a pair of shoes for a customer when his manager … Continue reading “French luxury firm gets sued for racism at its London store”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[593,1553,2054,9392,9393,157],"class_list":["post-14579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-diversity","tag-london","tag-louis-vuitton","tag-oliver-koffi","tag-racism"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14580,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14579\/revisions\/14580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}