Does Your Dispatcher Speak English?

[Pilgrim]

According to the Obama Regime, he/she shouldn't have to. One can imagine countless scenarios that could be disastrous when dealing with a serious language barrier, but to Barack Hussein Obama the inability to communicate with one's fellow workers isn't a problem.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency tasked with enforcing workplace discrimination laws, is suing a private American business for firing a group of Hispanic and Asian employees over their inability to speak English at work, claiming that the English-language requirement in a U.S. business constitutes “discrimination.”...

According to a news release from the EEOC, Chicago Regional Attorney John C. Hendrickson said the Green Bay-based company’s English requirement is based on “superficial” reasoning.

"Our experience at the EEOC has been that so-called 'English only' rules and requirements of English fluency are often employed to make what is really discrimination appear acceptable. But superficial appearances are not fooling anyone,” Hendrickson said in the release. “When speaking English fluently is not, in fact, required for the safe and effective performance of a job, nor for the successful operation of the employer’s business, requiring employees to be fluent in English usually constitutes employment discrimination on the basis of national origin — and thus violates federal law.”...

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/federal-gov-t-sues-wisconsin-company-says-english-language

The degree of incompetence and lack of common sense from this administration seems to have no limits, but what else should we expect from the cronies of an inexperienced, radically liberal college lecturer who was never connected to the real world before entering politics.

 

[Daffyduck528]

The carriers may get away with claiming it's not superficial when they have to speak to English only speaking people on the phone. But other in house jobs, accounting for example, may not hold up to these crazy litigations.

 

[zorry]

I leased to Watkins in Chicago and they had a Polish speaking dispatcher to work with the drivers that couldn't communicate with the English speaking dispatchers.
If you spoke to some drivers they would just smile and nod their head.

 

[Turtle]

The EEOC of late has certainly been a little rambunctious, but it's hardly new stuff. Look up the 1980 case against Sears. They were out of control then, and they really haven't gotten much better since. They have twisted the Civil Rights Act to apply to everything from hurt feelings to requiring a high school diploma.

 

[tknight]

Bulgarian and the other pimp is Ukrainian, Russian and Polish, thank god for google translator apps

 

[cheri1122]

It seems to me that if you work in a plastics factory and receive satisfactory job performance reviews, the inability to speak English "fluently" is not required. Though one wonders why language impaired people were hired to begin with, firing them later is unreasonable, IMO.
If you work in dispatch, providing customers' street addresses, special customer instructions, pickup/delivery times, and functioning as a go-between to resolve issues with drivers and/or customers, speaking English clearly and correctly is absolutely "mission critical".
I've never heard a dispatcher with less than fluent English, and I'd be upset if I had - it matters to the success of my job performance.
For factory workers, not so much.
The idea that Obama personally authored the opinions of the EEOC is just pathetic, BTW.

 

[Turtle]

It seems to me that if you work in a plastics factory and receive satisfactory job performance reviews, the inability to speak English "fluently" is not required. Though one wonders why language impaired people were hired to begin with, firing them later is unreasonable, IMO.

On the other hand, if you work in a plastics factory and receive less-than satisfactory performance reviews, then what language you speak is irrelevant. The assertion that they hired language impaired people, then fired them later because they couldn't speak English, doesn't add up. Wisconsin Plastics was praised by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Association who granted them an “employment leadership” award for, among other things, management efforts to learn Hmong (a Chinese dialect) to better facilitate communication with their employees, who were Hmong.

The idea that Obama personally authored the opinions of the EEOC is just pathetic, BTW.

Pretty sad. Especially when you consider the EEOC has been handling thousands of cases just like this one, starting long before Obama got elected. This case is just one of thousands, with nothing Obama-special about it. Yes, one can easily imagine countless scenarios that could be disastrous when dealing with a serious language barrier, and the EEOC takes all of those into consideration (EEOC Compliance Manual Section 13: National Origin Discrimination - English Fluency, English-Only Rules).

Even where an English-only rule has been adopted for nondiscriminatory reasons, the employer's use of the rule should relate to specific circumstances in its workplace. An English-only rule is justified by "business necessity" if it is needed for an employer to operate safely or efficiently. The following are some situations in which business necessity would justify an English-only rule:

• For communications with customers, coworkers, or supervisors who only speak English
• In emergencies or other situations in which workers must speak a common language to promote safety
• For cooperative work assignments in which the English-only rule is needed to promote efficiency
• To enable a supervisor who only speaks English to monitor the performance of an employee whose job duties require communication with coworkers or customers

 

[muttly]

It seems to me that if you work in a plastics factory and receive satisfactory job performance reviews, the inability to speak English "fluently" is not required. Though one wonders why language impaired people were hired to begin with, firing them later is unreasonable, IMO.
If you work in dispatch, providing customers' street addresses, special customer instructions, pickup/delivery times, and functioning as a go-between to resolve issues with drivers and/or customers, speaking English clearly and correctly is absolutely "mission critical".
I've never heard a dispatcher with less than fluent English, and I'd be upset if I had - it matters to the success of my job performance.
For factory workers, not so much.
The idea that Obama personally authored the opinions of the EEOC is just pathetic, BTW.

From article:
The Commission can be expected to aggressively pursue other existing top priorities in 2010. The first is a shift in enforcement emphasis from individual cases to cases in which the EEOC can claim to be combating systemic discrimination of some sort. This initiative has the practical effect of transforming routine individual cases into large class actions, and vastly increasing the cost of defending such matters. Second, the EEOC has launched a five-year program known as its E-RACE initiative ("Eradicating Racism and Colorism From Employment"). This program targets certain otherwise facially neutral employment criteria that the EEOC believes may have a disparate impact on people of color, including hiring tests, credit and background checks, and arrest and conviction records. As part of this initiative, the EEOC plans to collect more information from employers, such as demographic data, to identify litigation opportunities and increase media exposure in race discrimination cases.

As with the changes to the NLRB, the recent additions to the EEOC will undoubtedly lead to a more active EEOC.
Publications | Jones Day Mobile Site

 

[cheri1122]

The EEOC press release cited in the OP states that all the fired workers had received satisfactory performance ratings on annual evaluations.
I think it's a common sense approach to differentiate between when it matters, and when it doesn't. I personally think it matters for truck drivers [especially when I'm waiting in line at the Pilot behind one who cannot make his truck number understood by the clerk], but that's debatable. We just have to hope they read and understand it better than they speak it, I suppose.
Because much as we'd like the whole population to speak fluent English, it aint gonna happen.

 

[Turtle]

Grain of salt in relying solely on allegations in an EEOC press release. There's probably another side to the story besides just the EEOC's. Google found it. The company disputes utterly that the employees were given satisfactory reports. The company also notes that there are other Hmong and Hispanics still working there who have the same levels of language as the ones who were fired., which doesn't exactly show a language discrimination.

 

[LDB]

Wouldn't it be a wild idea to say an employer can hire and fire anyone they choose for any reason they choose? Sort of like an employee can choose to accept and quit any job they choose for any reason they choose? Equal rules and privileges for both sides? What a wild idea.

 

[layoutshooter]

Wouldn't it be a wild idea to say an employer can hire and fire anyone they choose for any reason they choose? Sort of like an employee can choose to accept and quit any job they choose for any reason they choose? Equal rules and privileges for both sides? What a wild idea.

That would be considered freedom, which is no longer allowed. Everything must have some sort of government mandate attached to it.

IF I were to start hiring, which I won't for a ZILLION reasons, half of which are government regulations, I would give minimum written tests, not computer tests, 'Merican. No pass no job. Basic math, you know, adding, subtracting etc, tests would be given as well, NO calculators allows. No pass no job.

As an employer I SHOULD have the right to hire only those suited to the needs I determine.

 

[Pilgrim]

I've never heard a dispatcher with less than fluent English, and I'd be upset if I had - it matters to the success of my job performance.

For factory workers, not so much.

"For factory workers, not so much"??? That's absolutely absurd - the necessity to be able to communicate effectively in the operation of a production facility should be blindingly obvious to anyone that's ever been around a factory, but I'll offer one example why and it's one we should all be familiar with: the packaging of hazmat. If a lower level employee in the shipping dept can't understand the instructions being given by his supervisor or co-workers on how this is done, somebody gets in big trouble.

The idea that Obama personally authored the opinions of the EEOC is just pathetic, BTW.

Where is that stated?
However, blaming everything from the weather to gas prices on Bush when he was in office didn't seem to be "pathetic" - it was the norm for liberals, and still is. "It happened on his watch" was the catch phrase, and it applies in this instance the same as the outrageous and illegal actions of the IRS, NSA, EPA and all the other govt agencies one could easily name. The idea that Obama doesn't have any influence over these agencies is nonsense, and the most recent examples that are on the front pages right now are ICE and the Border Patrol, and their handling of the flood of illegal, illiterate, disease infested children that are invading our country by the hundreds of thousands. For example, he was personally involved in the lawsuits filed by his AG Eric Holder against TX and AZ to keep them from enforcing border security in their states. He's also blatantly stated there are laws of the land that he doesn't like and intends to ignore or will not enforce. All he has to do is use his pen or pick up his phone and tell the head of the EEOC to lighten up.

 

[Pilgrim]

Wouldn't it be a wild idea to say an employer can hire and fire anyone they choose for any reason they choose? Sort of like an employee can choose to accept and quit any job they choose for any reason they choose? Equal rules and privileges for both sides? What a wild idea.

In most right-to-work states employees can be fired with or without cause. However, the employer better be careful applying this policy to women, minorities, the obese, anyone over 40, the handicapped or disabled, and anyone with red hair

 

[RLENT]

"For factory workers, not so much"??? That's absolutely absurd - the necessity to be able to communicate effectively in the operation of a production facility should be blindingly obvious to anyone that's ever been around a factory,

What's absolutely absurd is the apparent compulsion on the part of some to dream up hypothetical scenarios that might pose some potential problem ... and then attempt to blame it on Obama ... all the while running around shouting like Chicken Little that the sky is falling ...

An interesting thing to note is how popular this sort of thing seems to be with older men ... usually white (interestingly enough ), often Southern, and on the north side of the half century mark ... but seemingly even more popular (or maybe just more intense) once they hit 60 or 70 ...

Apparently, there may be a physiological cause:

Irritable_male_syndrome

And people thought hormonal pausation was just for women ...

Spending any time around here - or similar political forums - should certainly disabuse them of that novel idea ...

... male PMS ... lol ...

but I'll offer one example why and it's one we should all be familiar with: the packaging of hazmat. If a lower level employee in the shipping dept can't understand the instructions being given by his supervisor or co-workers on how this is done, somebody gets in big trouble.

A good counter-example might be my next door neighbor - who is a (relatively) recent arrival from South America ...

I think it's Argentina, but could be another country ...

His English is pretty poor ... and between it and my poor Spanish, having a reasonable conversation is tedious at very best, if not **** near impossible ...

Which is - to some degree - my fault (or responsibility) ... for failing to pay more attention and really apply myself in highschool during Spanish class ...

He works in a local machine shop ... dunno doing what - could be a highly trained machinist or engineer - but I know he has worked doing hard physical labor (landscaping) at some point prior to that ...

A couple years younger (early fifties) than me and has several grown, adult children - two of them girls - with children of their own. He bought Pete's old house, after Pete passed away ... and immediately went to work on it after they moved in, fixing it up and doing landscaping ... even though it was already in pretty good shape.

Earlier this year, when my grass was over a foot tall and in bad need of cutting, this guy actually drove his little tractor down to my house (which is a ways) ... to ask if I was alright and if I needed any help.

In my opinion he appears to be an asset to the community and the nation ... possibly more so than my other former neighbor who was an alleged "convicted sex offender" ...

(Which may have meant that the former neighbor decided to take a whizz on the side of the road to avoid pizzing himself ... and some erstwhile moral dictator with a badge decided to add another notch on his gun and make his life a living hell ...)

 

[paullud]

What's absolutely absurd is the apparent compulsion on the part of some to dream up hypothetical scenarios that might pose some potential problem ... and then attempt to blame it on Obama ... all the while running around shouting like Chicken Little that the sky is falling ...

An interesting thing to note is how popular this sort of thing seems to be with older men ... usually white (interestingly enough ), often Southern, and on the north side of the half century mark ... but seemingly even more popular (or maybe just more intense) once they hit 60 or 70 ...

Apparently, there may be a physiological cause:

Irritable_male_syndrome

And people thought hormonal pausation was just for women ...

Spending any time around here - or similar political forums - should certainly disabuse them of that novel idea ...

... male PMS ... lol ...


A good counter-example might be my next door neighbor - who is a (relatively) recent arrival from South America ...

I think it's Argentina, but could be another country ...

His English is pretty poor ... and between it and my poor Spanish, having a reasonable conversation is tedious at very best, if not **** near impossible ...

Which is - to some degree - my fault (or responsibility) ... for failing to pay more attention and really apply myself in highschool during Spanish class ...

He works in a local machine shop ... dunno doing what - could be a highly trained machinist or engineer - but I know he has worked doing hard physical labor (landscaping) at some point prior to that ...

A couple years younger (early fifties) than me and has several grown, adult children - two of them girls - with children of their own. He bought Pete's old house, after Pete passed away ... and immediately went to work on it after they moved in, fixing it up and doing landscaping ... even though it was already in pretty good shape.

Earlier this year, when my grass was over a foot tall and in bad need of cutting, this guy actually drove his little tractor down to my house (which is a ways) ... to ask if I was alright and if I needed any help.

In my opinion he appears to be an asset to the community and the nation ... possibly more so than my other former neighbor who was an alleged "convicted sex offender" ...

(Which may have meant that the former neighbor decided to take a whizz on the side of the road to avoid pizzing himself ... and some erstwhile moral dictator with a badge decided to add another notch on his gun and make his life a living hell ...)

So basically you could have cut this down and just said you don't understand the reality of why being able to communicate clearly in a factory is important. The reason, it's for safety and being able to work effectively. The second part could have been summed up as saying that you have a pointless anecdotal story and to PM you if anyone wants to be bored.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using EO Forums mobile app

 

[Turtle]

There are some factory jobs where English proficiency is important, and some where it doesn't matter at all. The EEOC differentiates between those jobs.

And while it's absurd to think that Obama doesn't have any influence on the actions of government agencies it's equally absurd to think that Obama divides up his day making decisions for these agencies, especially when these agencies are acting in the same manner they always have been. This plastics factory case is routine, nothing new or out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing that Obama is going to waste his time on, one way or the other.

 

[RLENT]

So basically you could have cut this down and just said you don't understand the reality of why being able to communicate clearly in a factory is important.

No ... to do so would have been a falsehood.

The reason, it's for safety and being able to work effectively.

No kiddin ?

Who would have imagined ?

The second part could have been summed up as saying that you have a pointless anecdotal story and to PM you if anyone wants to be bored.

Not really ... there's actually more of a story there - one which I don't know all the details of - that I think it would be interesting to know.

And on the boredom thing: yeah, there do seem to be some folks that are easily afflicted by that malady ... similar to that Chicken Little thing ...

 

[Ragman]

Wouldn't it be a wild idea to say an employer can hire and fire anyone they choose for any reason they choose? Sort of like an employee can choose to accept and quit any job they choose for any reason they choose? Equal rules and privileges for both sides? What a wild idea.

Not such a wild idea. If I was hired and put to work, preformed as expected, Then was fired because the employer didn't like Irish, Catholics, Jewis, or any other group anymore, You better believe he would be in a heap of trouble.

 

[layoutshooter]

Then there is the parable of the "Tower of Babel".