Editing Mohamed Al-Fayed (section)

====Employee relations====
Al-Fayed was concerned by the loyalty of his staff, and employed two young Greek women as spies, to report on their fellow employees.<ref name="Bower 1998, p. 200">Bower 1998, p. 200.</ref> The telephones of the shop workers' trade union, [[USDAW]] were bugged.<ref name="Bower 1998, p. 200"/> Employees were signed to three-month contracts, and were often fired without agreed compensation, and forced to go to an industrial tribunal.<ref>Bower 1998, p. 201.</ref> Al-Fayed also listened in to his employees, and secretly recorded conversations about their sex lives.<ref name="Bower 1998, p. 236">Bower 1998, p. 236.</ref>

Al-Fayed would customarily fire employees who offended his idea of aesthetics, being most offended by overweight staff or black people.<ref>Bower 1998, p.198.</ref> To avoid hiring black people, Harrods required applicants to submit photographs.<ref name="Bower 1998, p.202">Bower 1998, p.202.</ref> The number of black people employed by Harrods was eventually half the number employed by other London stores.<ref name="Bower 1998, p.202"/>

Francesca Bettermann, Harrods former legal counsel, said of Al-Fayed "He likes a pretty face. He wouldn't hire someone who was ugly. He liked them light-skinned, well educated, English, and young...I remember there was something on the application form that said, 'Your colour, race' I said, 'You're not allowed to put that on the form,' and he said, 'Well, make sure they put proper photos in, then.'" <ref name="maureen-orth"/> In 1994 Harrods settled five racial-discrimination cases brought against the company, and, according to trade union officials, between June and September 1994, 23 of the 28 staff fired were black people, who had held mostly menial jobs.<ref name="maureen-orth"/>

A florist was rejected for employment by Harrods because she was black. The chairman of the subsequent industrial tribunal condemned Harrods's defence as 'malicious and dishonest', stating 'there was an act of blatant racial discrimination...by a very senior personnel officer working in a very large organisation...there was lying and deceit on the part of Harrods personnel to conceal the act of discrimination. There was dishonest testimony by Harrods personnel'.<ref>Bower 1998, p.446.</ref>