English Language Requirement In Your work Place? Who Wants To Be Forced To hire Non English Speaking Employees

Question

Who wants to be forced to hire non English speaking employees to work at their business that depends fully on having English speaking employees?

Today it was reported that Nancy Pelosi wants all American businesses located in the United States to be forced to hire non English speaking employees. What’s your Input on this issue?

If you have a business that caters to the public of America and almost all Americans speaks English only what good is a person that can just shrug his or her shoulders and flails their arms when you ask where an item in the store located?

I did get the title wrong it should have read

Non-English Language Requirement In Your work Place? Who Wants To Be Forced To hire Non English Speaking Employees

Answer 1

not quite....

While I despise Pelosi, you've misrepresented her position here.

No-one is going to be forced to hire non-English speakers. Making the ability to speak English a job requirement is perfectly legal, and has nothing to do with what Pelosi said.

The situation is not that she wants employers to be forced to hire employees who *can't* speak English, it's about requiring employees who speak English *AND* another language to speak English ONLY on the job site.

In the case in question, a Salvation Army store in MA had a rule that employees should speak English only while on duty, unless they were speaking to a customer who wanted to speak another language. Two Spanish speaking employees who kept speaking to each other in Spanish while at work wer reprimanded and eventually fired. (Some non-Spanish speaking employees complained that they thought they were being talked about in a language they didn't understand)

There's a bill being proposed by Lamarr Alexander that would specifically allow employers to have "English only" rules in the workplace "if they want to" (Nothing of course, stops employers that want to attract non-English speaking customers from hiring employees that speak other languages.)

Pelosi is opposed to this Bill. I think she's wrong. People speaking to each other in a language their co-workers don't speak is a recipe for ill-feeling at work.

Richard

Answer 2

Only a dishonest person could turn Pelosi being against an ammendment to a bill that would force empoyees to speak English as forcing the Salvation Army to hire people that don't. Congrats, you and the author are those dishonest people The Salvation Army hires people that don't speak English ALL THE TIME and has ABSOLUTELY NO QUALMS about doing so. While I can understand the intent of such legislation, the method within this amendment though which such intent is achieved is not the way to go. Cases should be looked at one at a time. Forbidding even potentially valid disputes from being brought before a court is wrong

Answer 3

If it is required that someone speak English, then it's already in effect. Air traffic controllers must speak intelligible English, for instance, as do court interpreters. Cutsomer service people can be hired based on their intelligibility. Just to not hire someone because you don't like to here Spanish at work doesn't cut it. As long as the person can learn safety rules and perform during an emergency, they should be hired if they don't interact with the public. The exception would be a requirement for a bilingual speaker.

I agree with a previous person--the lawsuit noted was because the Salvation Army said that the employees couldn't speak anything other than English on the job. While it doesn't help someone to learn English if they won't speak it all the time--it has been upheld that "English only" laws are not constitutional for some time. The court just upheld a previous court case. It doesn't say the workers were fired for not speaking English to customers.

Answer 4

I think America should make English the only official national language once and for all to stop all this nonsense.

NO, no employer should be forced to hire anyone who can't get the job done, or serve the clientele in retail... That's undemocratic

Answer 5

What your suggest is against the EEOC ,job discrimination of the Equal Rights Amendment of the Civil Right Act of 1996.
Remember we are a nation of laws.

Answer 6

If its true that Nancy suggested this it would not suprise me, but watch it disappear as elections come up. Seriously the DNC won't want this attached to their presidential candidate....I can't wait to see Hillary dodge this one.