Thread: Protect English at work, says Alexander

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January 15, 2008

Protect English at work, says Alexander

By JANELL ROSS
Staff Writer

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee has launched a second attempt to protect employers from language-based, anti-discrimination suits.

His Protection of English in the Workplace Act comes after a similar bill he sponsored passed the Senate but died in a conference committee last year.

The bills followed two suits filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year. One was against a Houston ship captain who reportedly threatened sailors with a knife after they spoke Spanish in violation of his English-only policy on board. It was settled in December in favor of the plaintiffs for $31,000.

The other is pending against the Salvation Army, which fired two Spanish-speaking clothes sorters who violated the English-only policy at a branch near Boston. The Salvation Army contends that speaking English is a safety issue and that the organization does not discriminate.

Alexander's bill would bar EEOC involvement in such language-based complaints. None of the 29 EEOC English-only workplace policy lawsuits filed in the last 10 years has been filed in Tennessee.

In 2007, just 32 of the roughly 75,000 complaints made to the EEOC about employers were related to workplace English-only rules. The EEOC couldn't say whether any of the 32 were filed in Tennessee, and Alexander's office was not aware of any.

The numbers could mean Alexander has reasons to advance the bill beyond protecting Tennessee business owners, one analyst said.

"This may really be about Senator Alexander's deeply held beliefs or his understanding of the way that Tennessee voters feel about immigration," said John G. Geer, a Vanderbilt political science professor and editor of The Journal of Politics. "Remember, Sen. Alexander has been a pretty successful politician in no small part because he is in tune with Tennessee voters."

Bill has mixed support

The bill is expected to begin winding its way though Senate committees this month and has at least some powerful bipartisan support.

Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia, supports the measure and voted for the failed version last year.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Democratic Party leaders lobbied heavily to kill the provision in the earlier bill and have plans to repeat the effort should it emerge from committee, said Miguel Ayala, a spokesman for the caucus.

While governor during the 1980s, Alexander signed a law making English the official language of Tennessee, so the bill is consistent with his past efforts.

"It devalues our language and damages this country when you tell a shoe shop owner in Tennessee that he can't create a rule requiring his employees to speak the English language," he said. "It puts us in danger of becoming a United Nations, not the United States."

"… And in this country, in order to become a citizen, one of the things that you must do is learn the English language."

Blanket policy opposed

One does not have to be a citizen to work legally in the United States, Washington-based EEOC spokesman David Grinberg said. The EEOC recognizes legitimate business purposes for an English-only policy such as communicating with customers or co-workers, safety and completing cooperative work projects, Grinberg said, and is concerned only about "blanket" English-only policies.

"What we are concerned about is extreme situations," Grinberg said. "We filed one suit on behalf of employees who were fired for speaking Spanish in the break room, talking to family members on the phone and in another case saying good morning in the parking lot."

Last year, Alan Sielbeck, owner of Nashville-based Interstate AC Service, was a vocal advocate for a failed "English-first" proposal that was floated in Nashville. It would have required Metro government to deal with the public in English first before resorting to other languages. He wouldn't call himself a supporter of Alexander's bill, but doesn't like the idea of EEOC interference in business matters.

"As far as private business is concerned, I think it all depends on the nature of a business," Sielbeck said. "If that business owner thinks it's in the best interest of that company to have the workers speak English and only English, they should be able to create the policy they think best."

Nashville lawyer William "Zan" Blue, who specializes in employment law, agreed that employers can create English-only workplace policies if they can show that they serve a specific business purpose.

Last year, two of Blue's clients wanted to craft English-only workplace policies.

"They were concerned about the disruption they felt a small group of employees were creating," said Blue. "In one case, there were employees who thought other employees were using another language to say unkind things, to talk about the other employees."

That hasn't been an issue at Nashville-based restaurant chain Cheeseburger Charley's.

There are trays of chilled lettuce, pickles and tomatoes to be washed and stacked, condiment containers to be filled and a burger dressings bar to stock. While the staff members work, there are commands and requests that sometimes come in English and sometimes in Spanish.

"I don't really care what language they speak," said Chuck Watkins, owner of Cheeseburger Charley's, a seven-restaurant Tennessee franchise. "Everybody has got to be able to communicate with customers. But I don't have any kind of formal policy, and I really can't see why I would need one."

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http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 009/NEWS01

Matthew 18:20

"In one case, there were employees who thought other employees were using another language to say unkind things, to talk about the other employees."

And believe me this goes on a lot! My co-worker was caught spewing insults when she didn't realize that an English speaking co-worker also understood Spanish!