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Salvation Army sued by two employees fired for not learning English

An advocate for making English the official language of the U.S. says he can't understand why the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) is once again suing the Salvation Army for requiring its employees to learn English, especially since the Salvation Army has already won a similar court case.



Jim Boulet, executive director of English First, is appalled by the recent decision of the Boston Office of the EEOC to file suit against the Salvation Army for firing two employees who refused to learn English. The Christian social service organization had given the two women one year to get proficient in the language and to speak only English in the workplace.

Boulet says the Salvation Army was actually doing the women a favor. "Now, these women could have been allowed to just sit there sorting used clothing for the Salvation Army," he suggests. "Evidently they were doing a good enough job of that to be kept on; but that's not a road to improvement for them or their families. So, instead of running a little linguistic ghetto, the Salvation Army said, 'Learn English.'"

The English language advocate points out that a federal judge in Boston upheld the Salvation Army's English policy in a similar case in 2003. The organization "was sued for this very same policy -- in the very same courtroom -- and won," he notes; and yet, "the EEOC, with your tax money and mine, is making the Salvation Army defend again its policy of trying to encourage people to seize the opportunity that America has to offer by learning English."

Boulet says he is glad the service organization is fighting the suit again and "really proud that the Salvation Army hasn't just folded its tent on this one." He says the organization has "stood up for its principles" in this case.

And the English First spokesman is not alone in supporting the Salvation Army's stance. In a news release, Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) also blasted the EEOC over what he called a "frivolous lawsuit."

A little more on this incident that you won't see elsewhere in the media.

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Small excerpt from an article by by Newt Gingrich

 “Our friend Paul Weyrich at the Free Congress Foundation had a distressing story last week for anyone who is concerned about the future of the English language in our country. It’s a story about a charity whose good works exemplify Christian-based dedication and compassion. It’s a story about an employer who tried to do the right thing — to encourage its employees to learn and speak English. And it’s a story of a misguided federal agency that is using taxpayers’ money to punish those who encourage English, rather than reinforcing English as the language of American success and cultural unity.

Government Lawyers Sue the Salvation Army for Requiring English

The Salvation Army operates thrift stores across the United States. In keeping with its mission to help the less fortunate, these stores both cater to lower income customers and often employ people who might have difficulty finding work elsewhere. The Salvation Army has a policy that requires its employees to speak English on the job. In a 2003 opinion, a federal judge in Boston approved of the policy as a legitimate business practice. The next year, a Salvation Army store in Framingham, Mass., did what I think most of us would agree was the right thing to do: It gave two of its employees who spoke very little English a year to achieve a level of English proficiency required to do the job.

It’s important to note that the Salvation Army didn’t summarily fire these two employees. Quite the opposite. Counting the five years they had already worked there, the employees had a total of six years to learn English. But when they had failed to do so by 2005, they were let go.

That’s when the U.S. government sued. That’s right. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a taxpayer-funded government commission, is suing the Salvation Army, a private, charitable, religious, non-profit group. The government is alleging that the Salvation Army discriminated against the two employees by requiring them to speak English on the job, thus inflicting “emotional pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, embarrassment, humiliation and inconvenience.”

Now ask yourself two things: Why is the government undermining the efforts of charities to encourage people to learn English? And doesn’t it have better things to do with our tax dollars?

Why...because...because..... Well I guess since we do not have a National language then we cannot force anyone to learn any one specific language....is why we should make English the National language and then we can quit all this garbage.

Do they have better things to do?  Well lets see they could spend $1,000,000 on a lawsuit that takes 1 year to settle...then do it all over again within 10 years.  OR they could spend $1,000,000 and maybe 6 months to get a new Amendment to the Constitution that states English is national language.

That will never happen as long as the liberals control Congress and all the others are afraid to be called bigots. Besides why be concerned about a couple of million dollars, we'll just raise taxes to cover it all.

This is so ridiculous.  How can an organization expect its employees to communicate with one another, and with the general public, if certain members are unable to speak the prevailing language?  Funny, I haven't heard of the EEOC suing American employers who require Spanish fluency in their recruitment practices for positions in areas with a large Hispanic population.  Apparently, it's acceptable to require employees to speak Spanish, but discriminatory to require English.  We have a brainless, spineless government.

Exactly we must learn their language but they do not need to learn ours. Let's keep people simple and dependent on the government.

Oh....sorry!  Thought I was in the comedy thread!