EEOC takes aim on ‘English-only’ rules
December 5, 2008 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Discrimination, EEOC, In this week's e-newsletter, Job Screening Tests, Latest News & Views
Many companies have policies requiring employees to be fluent in English and speak the language at work. Is that against the law?
In many cases, yes, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The most recent case involves a suit brought by the EEOC against the Salvation Army regarding its language policy.
Two Spanish-speaking employees were fired for failing to speak English on the job and failing to learn language during their employment.
The Salvation Army’s handbook lists “Fluency in English; written and spoken” as a qualification for employment. Also, employees were required to speak English while they were at work.
Last week, the EEOC agreed to settle the case if those rules were changed.
The new policy requires “an ability to speak and understand English in a manner that is sufficient for effective communication with supervisors, employees, beneficiaries and customers, based on the assumption that such individuals can only speak and understand English.”
In other words: Requiring fluency in one language is discriminatory. Hiring employees with the ability communicate with customers, bosses and each other isn’t.
Tags: EEOC, English-only policy, Salvation Army
December 10th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Communication is so critical in the business world and is one of the biggest challenges faced within an organization. While there are some jobs where the requirement of being able to communicate with others in a common language is not as critical, it is always necessary to be able to exchange information in an effective and efficient manner. While that might not require “fluency,” it does require a basic level of understanding and comprehension. I admire people who are able to speak more than one language and I especially admire people who spoke a language other than English and took the time and put in the effort to learn to speak our language. English is not an easy one to learn. But not being able to communicate effectively is such a roadblock and barrier in business, I wonder how not acknowledging a common national language will impact businesses if carried to an extreme.
December 10th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
For all the explainations available as to why or why not someone should be required to be able to communicate in English isn’t it really as simple as this; We are in America, in this country we speak english. If we fail to establish this as law we will fail as a country becuse we will be able to communicate amoung us.
December 10th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
For all the explainations available as to why or why not someone should be required to be able to communicate in English isn’t it really as simple as this; We are in America, in this country we speak english. If we fail to establish this as law we will fail as a country because we will no longer be able to communicate amoung us.
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December 10th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
However, upon entering an INS office (It was still under INS at the time) the signs all stated that the individual MUST speak English in order to be serviced. The INS did at that time have exceptions based on age, and in some cases mental ability, of individuals, however how does the Government get to enforce it??
December 10th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
The trick here is that the United States of America, unlike most other countries, does not have a legally defined National Language. While the primary language spoken in the US has always been English, that lack of legal standing is why so many official documents come in a dozen or so languages. The thing that astounds me is, if I were moving to a foreign country, it seems logical to master the local language, official or not, as soon as possible. I’m tired of people coming to me with their tre-teen kids to translate for them. If they’ve been in the country long enough for the kid to learn English, why haven’t they even learned basic phrases? Sheesh…
December 10th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Are we required by law to hire anyone who does not speak english that can be understood. Can I say to a person that if they do not understand english that we will not hire them. This is asummung they brought someone in that can tell them what I said. Is it legal to say
December 10th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
We live in a world that is increasingly becoming more interdependent for survival and growth of each country’s economy. We cannot afford an attitude of “you live in my country so you speak my language”. The U.S. has an invaluable resouce in its immigrant population. In both of my last two places of employment, we hired people who spoke little English. We were able to communicate with these employees so they understood the job responsibilities and safety issues and both turned out to be great workers, more so than some of their American-born colleagues. English as a “requirement” should be based upon the responsibilites of the worker, not simply as a requirement for employment. The growing sentiment of making English the official language does nothing for our world image, our economy nor for us an citizens of this great country.
December 10th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
We offer in this country tremendous opportunities for everyone to learn English FREE at many churches and organizations throughout the country. This business of having everything in English and Spanish now has created a sense of entitlement among Hispanics that is wrong. I agree that it is beneficial to know several languages, but we are in the United States of America, and our language is ENGLISH – what about Asians or other immigrants? We are not accommodating them… why should be make an exception for Hispanics?
December 10th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
To MM comment I have this to say.
The employer’s policy to communicate in Englsih is one thing but to enforce “English” only is against the law. You’re correct; this is America; the land of immigrants that have adopted the “popular” language but not an official language. If an employee wants to converse with customers or another employee in Spanish or another language that is accepatble as loong as the conversation is not being directed to another empl;oyee who doesn’t understand.
Your argument that this is America is weak simply because we borrowed the language from mother England but mother England is losing the language popularity to the Spanish majority now living in the United States. What does majority have to do with it?
What happened to the Native American Indians and Spanish who were here before the Mayflower that did not speak English?
You’re correct; the majority English speaking won out through manifest destiny; now welcome
Latino manifest destiny!
December 10th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Anyone living in the US should be required to communicate in english. That is the language that was spoken when this great nation was built. Just FYI english is the official language for the state of California. So why should I, a person born and raised here, (my ancestors spoke english as well) have to be bilingual to get a job here?
December 10th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
James,
According to my legal counsil in MN it is legal for an employer to require that an employee speaks english while performing his or her work related tasks ie. speaking with other employees, vendors and customers. However; while they are on their break period we cannot dictate which language they speak.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
To Mimi:
We actually do have many documents that are translated into Hmong and other Asian languages. Please keep in mind there are other people from many other counties who come here and have not yet learned English. Please don’t just target Hispanics and get used to not only Spanish coming your way but also Polish, Bulgarian, Hmong, etc.
Kudos to James.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
As an HR manager for a small (300+) semiconductor plant many years ago, we had an “English only” policy. Employee safety was the primary purpose of the policy. When working with toxic gases, extreme heat, etc that semiconductor equipment generate or use, there was emminent risk. If there were an emergency such as a toxic gas leak, the warning yelled in the fab would be in English. Time could be of the essence and if a person did not understand English, their life could have been in danger.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
What do you think about the housekeeping staff in almost every hotel in this country? Whites do not scrub toilets or mop floors. The majority of the housekeeping staff in hotels is latino and in some cases asian. If there were no latino population in this country, americans would probably build a housekeeping robot before being a janitor themselves!
I agree that if we are in this country we must speak English first. But those who do not fully speak or understand english, still have the right to get information in their language, whenever possible.
I also agree that some people, even with the tools in their hands, do not take advantage of them, like the fact of being able to take complimentary english classes at churches. This is linked to a certain level of culture, a mindset, something they were raised with and they do not think they will be able to learn because that is what they were told when they were growing up…that is the reality in certain cultures and we cannot expect everyone to think smart like we think we do
December 11th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Why is it when you go to other countries you have to speak their language or understand it to function but in ours you don’t. Why is it we have to accommidate everyone else. We are losing our
language by being too accommidating. I believe in having people come into our country legally. My parents came over from Germany after WWII and as soon as they came on land they spoke English and became US citizens. I think if we required English to be at least part of our requirement
for work we have less illegals in our country and we can communicate better. If we aren’t careful there will be 50 lanuages on everything and no english at all.
December 11th, 2008 at 9:53 am
In reply to Lala’s comment: If those jobs paid more “whites” would be doing them. Those that are doing the jobs that you mentioned will take those jobs with lower pay because either they are illegial or feel that is all they can apply for because of their handicap of not speaking or understanding English and therefore not able to better themselves. If they are going to do those jobs why would the employers hire white employees and raise the wages?
December 11th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
The way things are going in the US, we will all have to learn Mandarin Chinese to work with our new overlords who own vast amounts of US Treasury instruments, real estate, production facilities etc.etc.etc.
December 12th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Only in America are we forced to bend over backwards to accomodate people who do not want to be American, just want to reap the benefits (which Americans Pay for).
Ridiculous, unless you want to be a gardener or a maid your entire life, learn the language and if you are illegal, you should be prosecuted and deported. Not every country has the luxury of being able to Walk in. People wait years to come here. Too bad if you don’t want to wait, that’s life, it is not entitled to you!
December 12th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
To LaLa,
Why ios it up to me to pay for them to get info in their language? Why don’t they hire an interpreter?
December 13th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
It is not only “Whites” as you say that are against illegals and their entitlement mentality. It is all people who had to work hard, wait in line and play by the rules. Asian, European, African. It is not a racist issue. It is an issue based on the fact that for some reason, Mexicans think it is their right to circumvent the rules and for Americans to take care of them.
December 15th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Do you know what interpreters cost? You are in America….learn the language. If your country was so bad you wanted to live here…leave it behind and really become an American! I like the old saying…while in Rome do as the romans do. It would just show you have respect for our country that is giving you a fresh start if you take advantage of it.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:01 am
If we want to nationalize English as the official language then we should push Congress to do so. I lived in Africa and the Chinese in Benin did not learn the national language of French, they hired interpreters. We will not lose money, nor cleaning services if people are required to speak English. In fact it will encourage people to take education more seriously. I teach ESL on the weekends and I have found that South Americans are more serious about their future than those south of the border including Central America. NAFTA has really been a backbone to the latinos lack of speaking English.
In all fairness, we conduct business in English so the language of business is in English. As a latino who speaks, French, Spanish and Mandarin in that order and as an ESL teacher with a bachelor’s in International Business and Marketing it is a disservice to the non native speakers of English in our country not to require them to speak English as it should be our official language. I belive Canada has French and English as their national language. In Canada their are plenty of minorities whose languages are not represented on official documents, but only for travel documents. If the United States must adopt English and Spanish as the official language to make 45% or more of the people happy then you should push Congress. The only way to have an official language is to pursue the issue with your congressperson. Liberal arguements will not solve the problem. You have to make it an agenda with Congress by voicing your complaints and concerns.