General
Racism at Aston Martin also: shocking revelation from former employee
- GPblog.com
Aston Martin has experienced racism in the workplace earlier this year. Aidan Louw has gone public via Sky News to come forward about what happened. The now ex-employee claims he was the victim of racist and homophobic remarks from what were at the time his colleagues.
Swearing with the N-word
Louw has a British and South African passport. He worked as a laminator to build parts for Sebastian Vettel 's car. The 25-year-old Louw started working at Aston Martin in February 2022 as a temporary employee. From the very first moment, he was caught out and called names.
"Before I even walked into my working environment that's when I was told 'look if you've got a problem with how we speak here, it's just how we speak'. It went from brownie to darkie - I wasn't referred to as Aidy…or anything like that. I was called n** n** and brownie - that is what I was referred to. It was towards the end of the duration that I had finally processed what was happening," Louw says.
Louw has since left Aston Martin, but not because he decided to quit. His British employer terminated Louw's contract because of 'poor performance' and 'poor timekeeping'. This would have been unrelated to the discrimination he has faced. Louw says his performance and punctuality suffered because of the poor working conditions.
Aston Martin statement
Sky News wanted and received a statement from Aston Martin. "AMR and its supplier operate a zero-tolerance policy with regard to racism, homophobia and all types of discrimination. We deal with any allegations of this unacceptable behaviour seriously including thoroughly investigating such claims and sanctioning any individual who falls short of our standards.In this case, the complainant was rightly believ ed, his complaints were immediately acted upon and appropriate sanctions were imposed in line with our zero-tolerance policy. We are in ongoing discussions with him."
Meanwhile, all those involved in the racist and homophobic remarks are said to no longer work at Aston Martin. Lawrence Stroll's racing team has therefore intervened, actually when the damage had already been done. By going public, Louw hopes to ensure that even more attention is paid to racism within Formula 1. According to him, even more needs to be done to prevent this kind of behaviour and language.