Thread: Bilingual fire boss rule stirs controversy

Bilingual fire boss rule stirs controversy

(Be sure to watch the short video on the bottom of the page.)

Story Updated: Aug 20, 2006 at 10:07 PM PDT


By Melica Johnson and KATU.com Web Staff
SALEM, Ore. - Some English-speaking firefighters are losing their jobs because of an Oregon state law that requires them to be bilingual.

The Department of Forestry enacted a law three years ago that requires them to be bilingual, but this year they're actually enforcing it.

2002 was such a devastating wildfire season, contractors were scrambling to find firefighters.

Hispanics often filled their needs on the fire lines.

Follow-Up Story

Lawmakers take notice


Jim Walker of the Department of Forestry said "what we do know is 85 percent of the crew make-up is of Hispanic decent."

But many of the Hispanic fire fighters do not speak English. Walker says the language barrier is a concern.

Those concerns led the state to draft a new rule that all firefighting bosses speak English, and the languages of crew members who don't speak English.



Jaime Pickering, a squad boss overseeing 20 firefighters, says the rule means "job losses for Americans. The white people."

Because of the state's language requirement, Pickering can no longer work as a crew boss and supervise 20 firefighters, he can only manage a squad of four.

Pickering says that "if you have one Spanish guy on the crew, as an English crew boss, you can no longer be a crew boss, you have to step back to a squad boss, which is a demotion."

While the state made the rule change in 2003, it decided to strictly monitor the law this year as Hispanics continue to fill fire lines.

Jim Walker says "our main concern is that they are safe, and they are in a safe environment, and a lot of that deals with communication."

Manuel Franco is a Hispanic contractor for fire crews. He says he thinks the state's rule is necessary for worker safety.

"I think that's good, because that's for safety purpose," Franco says. "If there's a rock rolling down, everybody should understand that."

However, Manuel did say he felt the situation would improve if everyone spoke English. "We're living here. We should speak the language."

Jim Walker ponders the possibility that all fire crew members should be required to speak English, instead of having bilingual crew leaders.

"If it comes down to a safety issue, and it's determined that's the only way we can have people safely on an incident, then yes," Walker said.

Both Oregon state officials and those in the firefighting business say they do not think there are 'that many' illegal immigrant workers in the fire crews.

They say it is more a case of legal workers who do not speak English.

From 8-06

http://www.katu.com/news/3634401.html

Updated 3-08: This video makes me SICK! It's 36 seconds...

http://waronyou.blogspot.com/2008/03/fi ... aking.html

well Oregon, 1) you check that these guys are legally here 2) you don't recruit people who don't speak English and perhaps you need to make sure that you as a State are not playing the coporate game of selling off America to cheap labor - so raise the pay and you'll get more Emglish speaking folks and not desparate illegals working for cheap!

STOP THE NONSENSE!

They will not make the effort to learn the language of the country in which they live it’s much easer to force a nation to accommodate them. This is only the beginning of a long slow process that started with bilingual voter ballets.

Manuel Franco is a Hispanic contractor for fire crews. He says he thinks the state's rule is necessary for worker safety.

"I think that's good, because that's for safety purpose," Franco says. "If there's a rock rolling down, everybody should understand that."

However, Manuel did say he felt the situation would improve if everyone spoke English. "We're living here. We should speak the language."

Atleast one with an ounce of sense. Besides....what about "racial balance" in the force? Gonna keep legal immigrants from other countries out who have learned English and now are expected to speak Spanish to work?

Anyone know if Oregon has made their official states language English?

Just a couple technical notes on this...

1. The story is dated (you'll see that original story is dated from 2006 sometime) - so do keep that in mind.

and

2. Jaime Pickering, the guy that was featured in questioning the the ODF policy posted here on our boards for a while right after the story initially broke. I haven't seen him around since then, so I don't know how all this turned out.... If anyone knows, please fill us in.

Wow this law will make your head spin! I wonder if you only speak English, can you only work on a English speaking crew? Seems that would take a little time, if you have to get to the fire quick to make sure you are in the right crew or not. And the biggest question I had is , If you are a legal immigrant or new citzen don't you have to know how to speak English? Why do the open border people have to make life so complicated, they need to be working on making sure we have a country left for anyone to be working in, jobs are getting slim, and they want to make sure the hispanics are coered, how are they going to like it if we all quit our jobs and let the hispanics take care of us, guess that will be unfair too!

Originally Posted by crazybird

Anyone know if Oregon has made their official states language English?

Not a chance. I noticed a recent TV ad sponsored by our SoS (Sec. of State) regarding our upcoming primary (May 20th or so) and it in, there was the usual and horrific notice "Se Habla Espanol". And, in fact, our previous editions of our voter's pamphlet bi/multi-lingual versions available as well.
(Remember that we're a vote-by-mail state, so almost everyone votes using the printed information a great deal).

OK, let me tell you how supid this is, I was a volnteer fire Capt. so I know what I am talking about.
We had to go to a lot of training to get to where we knew how to handle things and keep people safe, firefighters die from not knowing what to do!
Why would they take a person who has the training to prevent the deaths of firefighters out simply because he does not speak spanish.
The thing they need to do is is require that a firefighter needs to speak English. There are lots of requirments to become a firefighter and that should be one of them.

Let's all call the governor or whoever you think we should.
Any suggestions of who we should flood with calls?
We need to post the phone numbers too.

1. The story is dated (you'll see that original story is dated from 2006 sometime) - so do keep that in mind.

The updated one is in the first link I put in at the bottom. I saw that same thing so I checked it out.
It's still an issue.