Thread: Nancy Pelosi tries to force the Salvation Army to hire ...

Nancy Pelosi tries to force the Salvation Army to hire people who can't speak English.

Monday, November 19, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

It's been less than a week since New York's Sen. Hillary Clinton and Gov. Eliot Spitzer had to climb down from their support of driver's licenses for illegal aliens. Now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has moved to kill an amendment that would protect employers from federal lawsuits for requiring their workers to speak English. Among the employers targeted by such lawsuits: the Salvation Army.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, a moderate Republican from Tennessee, is dumbstruck that legislation he views as simple common sense would be blocked. He noted that the full Senate passed his amendment to shield the Salvation Army by 75-19 last month, and the House followed suit with a 218-186 vote just this month. "I cannot imagine that the framers of the 1964 Civil Rights Act intended to say that it's discrimination for a shoe shop owner to say to his or her employee, 'I want you to be able to speak America's common language on the job,' " he told the Senate last Thursday.

But that's exactly what the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is trying to do. In March the EEOC sued the Salvation Army because its thrift store in Framingham, Mass., required its employees to speak English on the job. The requirement was clearly posted and employees were given a year to learn the language. The EEOC claimed the store had fired two Hispanic employees for continuing to speak Spanish on the job. It said that the firings violated the law because the English-only policy was not "relevant" to job performance or safety.





"If it is not relevant, it is discriminatory, it is gratuitous, it is a subterfuge to discriminate against people based on national origin," says Rep. Charles Gonzalez of Texas, one of several Hispanic Democrats in the House who threatened to block Ms. Pelosi's attempts to curtail the Alternative Minimum Tax unless she killed the Alexander amendment.
The confrontation on the night of Nov. 8 was ugly. Members of the Hispanic Caucus initially voted against the rule allowing debate on a tax bill that included the AMT "patch," which for a year would protect some 23 million Americans from being kicked into a higher income tax bracket.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a moderate from Maryland, was beside himself. Congressional Quarterly reports that he jabbed his finger on the House floor at Joe Baca, the California Democrat who chairs the Hispanic Caucus, and yelled, "How dare you destroy this party? This will be the worst loss in 10 years."

Mr. Baca was having none of it. "You see this on the [voting] board?," he yelled back. "This is against me. This is against me personally." Luckily for Democrats, C-Span's microphones did not pick up the exchange. But it was audible to reporters in the press gallery. They also heard Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois say that English-only efforts were symbolic of "bigotry and prejudice" against those who speak other languages.

After testy negotiations, the Hispanic Caucus finally agreed to let the tax bill proceed after extracting a promise from Ms. Pelosi that the House will not vote on the bill funding the Justice and Commerce Departments unless the English-only protection language is dropped. "There ain't going to be a bill" with the Alexander language, Mr. Baca has told reporters.

Sen. Alexander says that if that's the case, "thousands of small businesses across America will have to show there is some special reason to justify requiring their employees to speak our country's common language on the job." He notes that the number of EEOC actions against English-only policies grew to some 200 last year from 32 a decade ago. In an attempt at compromise, he has offered watered-down language that would still allow the EEOC to file many actions, but he says House Democrats rejected it.





Mr. Alexander says his battle is about far more than what language is spoken on a shop floor. "The EEOC actions turn diversity, our greatest strength, against the interests of our common future as Americans," he told me.
The late Albert Shanker, head of the American Federation of Teachers, once pointed out that public schools were established in this country largely "to help mostly immigrant children learn the three R's and what it means to be an American, with the hope that they would go home and teach their parents the principles in the Constitution and the Declaration that unite us."

Mr. Alexander says that noble effort is in danger of being undermined: "We have spent the last 40 years in our country celebrating diversity at the expense of unity. One way to create that unity is to value, not devalue, our common language, English."

The battle over Mr. Alexander's amendment is about whether a consensus that used to unite liberals and conservatives in this country can continue to hold. If it can't, expect the issue to become a flashpoint in the 2008 elections. Republicans have their political problems with Hispanics over some of their approaches to illegal immigration, but they may be nothing compared to the problems Democrats have if they continue to cave in to their anti-assimilation extremists.
http://opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010881

This is so much BS. How many people are refused jobs because they don’t speak another language other than English? My daughter couldn’t find a job for 8 months because she doesn’t speak Spanish. I guess discrimination only works one way.

The Salvation Army rolled to provide assistance to illegal alien's families on numerous arrest sites. Here's their payback. And they no longer get contributions from me.

Then how is it an American can be refused employment for not speaking spanish?

Another TRAITOR, BOUGHT OFF POLITICIAN that needs to be FIRED!!!!!!!!!!!! Another politican who is in CONFLICT with its citizens!!!!!!!
Anti American!!!!!!

It'd be refreshing to see some of these politicians working for the interests of American citizens occasionally.A few do,but very few.

Pelosi was the one behind those shennanigans that overturned the Vote and allowed an illegal striking of the gavel in support of giving illegals taxpayer benefits. Remember that? She just smirked.

Pelosi is an extremely corrupt, socialist, cfr agenda woman.

Everything's about race to them, it seems. It's NOT about race, it's about language. I am sick of these so-called racist caucauses. Maybe it's time a suit was filed for the next person who gets turned down because they can't speak Spanish. The Hispanic reps will stop this country from ever having a totally unified language, unless it's spanish.

Somebody needs to sorely remind these people which country they are in and this kind of racist blackmail shouldn't fly in a free country. Apparently even Congressmen don't assimilate.

A white Jewish man won a congressional seat in a primarily black district in Memphis and the Black Caucus would not let him be a member even though the previous black rep. of that district was a member. It has nothing to do with the welfare of the people or district. It has everything to do with race. Likewise, these Hispanic reps are pandering to the ethno-centric districts and their inherent sensitivity. They take no thought for the benefits of the amendment or the protection of the FREEDOMS that people have in this country.

What this kind of thing does is make people leery of hiring people like this for fear of lawsuits.

Cindy Sheehan is talking about running against her next time. She needs to use this against her if she does run. Wouldn't that be a hoot to see Pelosi from Speaker to completely out of a job?

This is another reason to boycott CA wines since she has multi-million dollar holdings in the business. Guess where she gets her cheap labor. I'd call her office and tell her I'm boycotting CA wines because of your ridiculous acts against the American business owner and the Salvation Army. You want to kill business. It's a good way of doing it. She and Reid are some of the most stupid people I've ever seen.

what idiot would open a business and have the employees speak a different language then their customers? the bottom line is there still are more of us then 'them'. when i need something and go shopping if i couldn't communicate what i needed what good is that shop?