Get demoted if you can't speak Spanish!!!

[multibeard]

Looks like we now have mexiregon!!!

This just isn't right.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/nati...90/detail.html

I agree there may be a saftey issue but why aren't all the employees required to speak ENGLISH

[M.T. Pockets]

What a country we're living in.

Fabs, how are you on employment law ?

I don't know what the law is, and I don't really care. This doesn't pass the smell test. I'd like to see what happens if the person who gets demoted belongs to some other minority group.

I happen to be a firefighter too, a couple weeks ago we were at a very large fire at a commercial dairy facility. The workers there didn't even call it in, because none could speak any English. I mean NONE. Someone in a nearby town called 911 and we followed the smoke. The lack of communication between our department and the employees at the facility was a definite problem, but, who's problem is it really ?? There were a couple safety issues with them getting in our way and not doing what we needed them to do ( to get the hell out of there) because they couldn't understand a word we said. It was easier to communicate with the cattle.

I put a lot of the blame on the employer in this case, they fired all the local people a couple years ago and replaced them with non-english speaking people, less wages & benefits.

Sure it's a safety issue, but, who's problem is it ?? I don't think it is the English speaking firefigher's problem. This may touch a nerve with some, but I'm past the point of catering to people who don't learn the native language of the country where they live. I don't care what language or what country it is.

[fabsroman]

It probably would be fine because they are not discriminating based upon nationality, but upon a skill that the person does not have (i.e., the ability to speak Spanish). A lot of immigration lawyers around here post ads for associates and they require that the associate be fluent in both English and Spanish. Yeah, it pisses me off too.

My wife is a pharmacist and she was at a seminar where they were telling the pharmacists there that they should speak Spanish. My wife got pissed off and raised her hand to object. The person giving the presentation told my wife that she just did not know what it is like to be an immigrant. That is when my wife countered with the fact that her parents and my parents both came from Italy and none of the Americans learned Italian so that they could speak to these Italian immigrants. Heck, I was over my parents' place playing cards with my dad and some of his immigrant friends, and they were all for Congress passing a law stating that English is this counrty's language. They were actually pissed off at the special treatment that the hispanics are getting.

Personally, I am hoping that we put a lock on the borders and that this issue becomes less of an issue as time passes. As time passes it will give them the opportunity to learn some English and it will also allow the next generation to go to school in an English speaking school.

[8X56MS]

When I moved to Miami, I was looking for a job in Food Service Managment. I interviewed for months, and was turned down in every case because I was not 'bi lingual' in Spanish/English.
I asked an attorney, and was told that it you could NOT turn down a Hispanic because he was not fluent in English, but it WAS ok to turn me down because I was could not speak Spanish. Evidently there are some pretty complex laws at work here, that prevent discrimination against minorities or some crap like that.
Now, in Miami, being a white guy, non Hispanic, I was the minority, but in the eyes of the law, even though Miami-Dade is 75% spanish, they were still considered 'minorities'. Go figure

[Aim to maim]

Originally posted by fabsroman


Personally, I am hoping that we put a lock on the borders and that this issue becomes less of an issue as time passes.

Nice thought, but it's not going to happen.

[fabsroman]

Aim to Maim,

The reason it is not going to happen is because we have a bunch of idiots in office, but nobody respectable wants to run for office because of all the crap that goes on. Such is life.

If I were in charge of this whole thing, there would still be immigration allowed, but it would be controlled immigration. People would be allowed in in an orderly fashion.

8x56MS,

Here are the protected areas of the law:

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin

the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA), which protects men and women who perform substantially equal work in the same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination

the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older;
Title I and Title V of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which prohibit employment discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities in the private sector, and in state and local governments

Sections 501 and 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibit discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities who work in the federal government

the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which, among other things, provides monetary damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination.

Essentially, an employer cannot discriminate based upon race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age if the person is over 40, or disability if the person can perform the job at hand.

Whether or not a person is hired because he can or cannot speak Spanish does not qualify as discrimination if speaking Spanish is a legitimate requirement of the position. Likewise, not hiring somebody because they cannot speak English is not discrimination.

I don't deal much with employment law, but I did come across a case where 17 white male police officers filed an employment discrimination case against the department because the black police chief was only promoting blacks and hispanics even though the white men were just as qualified. They white mail police officers won millions of dollars. Great verdict.

Yes, discrimination happens on both ends of race, which seems to be the biggest issue. It also happens based upon sex. At the firm I was working at, they were scared to hire a female associate because she might get pregnant. Definitely discrimination, but try figuring that out if you are a female applicant that gets turned down for a position. The firm wouldn't tell them that it is because they are a female. Personally, I think we should all have a lie detector attached to us. Things would go much smoother then and people wouldn't ask questions they do not want answers to. Then again, I might end up in trouble with my wife.

[Blktail]

If you have to import people to do your dirty work don't complain if they don't speak your language.

Kick your kids in the azz and put them to work. (If you can get them to leave their couch, IPODS, cellphones and girl friends behind.

[M.T. Pockets]

Blktail, I agree it is much harder to get people to do the jobs that new immigrants are willing to do. It's been that way since this country started, the new immigrants have always done the dirty work.

The employer I was speaking of earlier had a full staff of local people working for them, $12 - $15 an hour jobs. The stockholders hired new management, first thing they did was fire EVERYBODY. I don't know how they did it. The same day they had immigrants that couldn't speak a word of english working for them for $2 - $5 an hour less. With some tricky accounting they avoid overtime. No benefits either.

What it comes down to is money. Stockholders want a return at any cost to society as we know it.

It is not just blue collar "dirty work" that is going elsewhere. Just talk to any computer engineer who lost their job to India.

[8X56MS]

blktail

If you have to import people to do your dirty work don't complain if they don't speak your language

this is one of the major fallacys in the immigration debate. The illegals are not just taking jobs in the fields, they are taking skilled labor jobs. Just a few weeks back, in Northern Kentucky, one of the biggest home builders was busted, along with hundreds of illegal tradesmen, for taking jobs that many Americans want, ie, framer, finished carpenter, roofer. The Mexicans were doing the work for $10 an hour, the prevailing labor rate for that work in that area is $23 an hour. The result is Americans that are perfectly willing to do the work, are on the street. Illegals that were IMPORTED to take these jobs were depressing the labor market, and the home builders were raking in huge profits.
See the diff now?

[fabsroman]

Okay, I seriously doubt that the immigrants were IMPORTED by the contractor to specifically do the work. More likely the immigrants were already here and they were willing to do the work because they had nothing else to do.

My granite counter top fabrication client hires legal immigrants for about $10 an hour. Some of his employees only take home $700 every two weeks, which I have no idea how they live on. His secretary/bookkeeper is making $28,000 a year, clearing about $1,050 every two weeks, and her rent is $1,400 a month. I have no idea how she makes ends meet.

I will agree that the illegals are taking many skilled jobs away from the legal americans, first generation immigrant or otherwise. The workmanship is utterly terrible too. Now, I also think the workmanship of most of these hispanic immigrants is pretty crappy. My granite client had to have his guys cut the same slab 3 times because they screwed up twice. First time they cut it too short. Second time they drilled the sink holes in the wrong place, and the third time they got it right. He also gets a lot of complaints about the quality of work done, yet clients come to him because he is the cheapest in town. You get what you pay for. Before I knew this client of mine, I hired a friend of my dad's to do my kitchen counter tops in granite, who was also a first generation hispanic immigrant. He came over and measured the counter top and I told him that one measurement was critical because it was the key to making everything fit right. I checked the measurement on the sheet and it was right. I called him the day before he was going to cut the slab and confirmed the measurement with his daughter. The slab arrives and that measurement was 3/4" of an inch too big. I had to end up cutting out the drywall to slide the slab in and it doesn't line up evenly with the stove. On top of that, they scratched my new stove. I wasn't happy. The same guy put the granite counter top in my brother's place and he didn't put a steel reinforcement bar where the sink cutout is. Guess what, the granite slab cracked right there while they were installing it. I would have returned it, but my dad, who was doing the remodel, accepted it.

The granite client also had his employees paint a granite tile display white in the shop. The walls around the display are green, and there was a ton of white paint strokes all over the green paint. It has been there for months now and I cringe every time I go down there and see it.

I think they have a completely different idea of what is good workmanship. To them, these places look great compared to what they came from in Latin America. However, to us the workmanship is sub par. The customer service is also a little bit lacking with these guys. Initially, my client could not understand why people would get pissed at him when he showed up two hours late for an estimate appointment. I think he is finally starting to understand (i.e., some people just left the house and he made the trip for nothing).

The way new homes are built using the stick built method is utterly insane. My deck was missing half the nails it should have had in it, and in some places finishing nails were used where normal head nails should have been used. However, I don't know if the guys doing the deck were immigrants or not.

[Blktail]

Everybody is looking for a deal.
They take the lowest bid and complain about the results.
If you didn't hire them, they wouldn't come.
I realize this is simplistic, but think about it. You have an economy which depends on imigrants to do the dirty work for you. Yet you complain when these same imigrants start to impact you in a negative way. Illegals are OK as long as they do the dirty work. You get what you pay for. You want a good high paying job with benefits, but many of you shop where the goods are sold by people making a pitance and sell goods made over seas in sweat shops.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. (Any more.)

Expect less - Live more! (I just made that up!)

[fabsroman]

Expect less - live more is pretty good.

Another one is "Have more in life by wanting less".

I agree. Way too many people want their cake and they want to eat it too. One of the better e-mail forwards I received was about a guy that wakes up in the morning and everything he touches in house and wears out to an interview that day is made overseas. He doesn't get the job and at the end of the day he is wondering where all the good american jobs are. My wife and I were out shopping the other day and we saw some clothing made in the USA. I was both shocked and ecstatic.

[Valigator]

Not to stray off the subject too much but when I was researching the worst polluters in the country, tile, marble and granite companies rank right under power plants....and these guys are in just about every industrial zoned neighborhood.....

[fabsroman]

I never would have guessed that these guys create a ton of pollution. I know they use a bunch of water to cut the granite and put an edge on it, and that the floor in the shop is extremely slippery because of the cut material/silt laying on the floor. I guess this stuff gets into the storm water drainoff and causes some serious problems. Just never thought about it that way.

Never really thought that farmers caused a lot of pollution with fertilizer runoff, but I learned that one in college. The fertilizer is terrible for the environment because it causes algae to grow in the water which blocks sunlight to the plants at the bottom. No plants, no environment for the baby fish and crabs to hide in. Hence, no fish. Also less waterfowl because the ducks eat the vegetation which is now nonexistant or they eat the small fish that would be hiding in the vegetation which are both now nonexistant.

[Valigator]

If you wanna get a shock Fabs, google in "Superfund Sites" it will let you take it from your state right down to your zip code...I am no great enviornmentalist, in fact I am still hard-pressed to grab a bottle of water, but when you see this stuff its scarey, not to mention that we are at a point in this particular administration, where about the most they are financing is just monoriting wells, hardly any clean-up to speak of. I posted in another area about these sites being sold to developers....think about it, you scratch and save finally find a place to buy...then boom ...your kids are being poisoned in their own back-yard...something isnt right here.