Spanish-Speaking Workers Challenge English-Only Policy at Sheet Metal Factory

Fox News ^

[boughtwithaprice]

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but it seems significant. Hey, you come to the US, you get a job here, you learn to speak our language! No sympathy!

[caisson71]

I’ll bet there is a “comprehensive immigration policy” organisation behind this. I’m waiting for the ACLU?

[Steely Tom]

"I can think of no good reason for them to institute this policy," said Steven Jacobs, the lawyer for the workers who are suing GC Industries in Deep River, Conn. "It's offensive to people who speak Spanish and is potentially dangerous. It inhibits them from communicating in their native tongue in situations that could put people at risk."

Is Steven Jacobs a sheet metal worker in addition to being a lawyer?

[Minnesoootan]

"I find that excuse hard to accept when 75 to 80 percent of the workforce speaks Spanish."

ooops,if they didnt want the problem....

[Graybeard58]

In a sane world, the owners or managers of that company should be able to fire any individual who did not comply with their rules.

[cripplecreek]

Back when I was a factory foreman the company dropped a half dozen non english speaking hispanics on me. After an hour of unsuccessfully trying to show them how to do the job, I went and found an American hispanic employee who remembered some spanish from high school. I had him show them how to do the job.

My friend came up to me later and told me that “they speak english but not to you.”

[Graybeard58]

"I find that excuse hard to accept when 75 to 80 percent of the workforce speaks Spanish."

I didn't read far enough to get to that part. That changes my opinion. Piss on them, they bought their own problems.

[VOA]

But Andres Moran, who speaks fluent English, said he and his four co-plaintiffs
needed to communicate in Spanish in order to do their jobs.

I'm sure they require a language like Spanish to communicate high-level
concepts like "cut here", "break glass on this line", and other
quantum physics concepts that English just can't convey.

What a load of BS. Like learning a few commands, warnings and
concepts in English is going to cause blood to shoot out their brains.

[eastforker]

Thats right, the old, “no comprende” cop out.

[Gay State Conservative]

"I can think of no good reason for them to institute this policy," said Steven Jacobs, the lawyer for the workers...

OK,Mr Jacobs,how do you say "hey,watch out for that 10 ton roll of sheet metal that just broke loose" in Spanish?

[Regulator]

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the U.S., both governments and companies discriminate in favor of Spanish speakers in hiring, and say that it's legitimate: like many public employment positions in California.

And does anyone think Univision or Telemundo hires people who only speak English?

The campaign of hate and colonization by the detritus of the Spaniard empire continues.

[VOA]

“When THEY came for the bank account of a guy that owned and operated
a glass factory, I did nothing. Because I didn’t have a glass factory.”

Does kinda’ give an insight into how a GOOD Civilization can be destroyed
a few little pieces at a time over years.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

>>My friend came up to me later and told me that “they speak english but not to you.”<<

Yep, I’ve seen that happen more times than I can count.

I used to manage 100-150 employees in a manufacturing environment, and the majority of them were ESL. They knew how to speak English, but refused to. They would only do it when it was convenient for them. They were, in essence, lazy about it.

What they didn’t know was that I had picked up enough conversational Spanish to understand what they were saying.

[caseinpoint]

Query: As a factory foreman, would you consider it possibly dangerous if you couldn’t understand what some workers were telling other workers about how to do their jobs? It seems to me there is a legitimate safety issue where instructions are filtered through non-supervisory people. Am I wrong?

[kinoxi]

My friend came up to me later and told me that “they speak english but not to you.”

I've found that to be true in many cases. The contempt for Americans and America is well entrenched across the board with most of these cretins.

[muawiyah]

If they work in a place where speaking Spanish isn't safe for everyone there they need to learn English.

OR, they can go home.

[norton]

"I find that excuse hard to accept when 75 to 80 percent of the workforce speaks Spanish."

I wonder how it escapes them that someone named Arbella probably speaks a little Spanish himself!

[Minnesoootan]

The company I work for has a LARGE workforce that is Vietnamese,all good hard workers....we have liason to work out the details we can’t convey,never been a problem. Now,if you are skilled enough to work in sheetmetal,you know the inherant dangers and there is not any VOCAL thing that is going to save your life in the event of an accident,this whole issue has been posted on FR before and it is nothing but a trial lawywers boondoggle set up,unfortunately, by the employer. You’re correct,I’ll bet they like the cheap employment they got...and those employees probably aren’t members of the sheetmetal workers union.

[traditional1]

What’s the Spanish words for “you’re fired, a$$hole”?

[Brucifer]

“I felt like I was a slave, basically,” said Moran. “I felt discriminated against, violated. I didn’t know what to do.”

Tell you what you do... there’s a bus headed for Reynosa in the morning. Get your ass on it and you can habla espanol all you want when you get there.

In Mexico if workers were fired for speaking a language other than Spanish nobody would bat an eye and the courts would laugh themselves silly if anyone complained. And with good reason. I had a lot of relatives from Mexico and everyone made speaking English the first priority when they got here. When they became citizens they started voting Republican.

The brazen hypocrisy of these five weasels disgusts me.