Employees at a particular work place in North Carolina woke up to some news they didn’t like from their employer, who implemented a new rule effective immediately. The boss doesn’t care about all the backlash that ensued after forcing this action on immigrants. She has no plans to back down in the face of condemnation.
Dr. Marilyn Pearson is a revered health director at the Johnston County Health Department in North Carolina. But she may have just earned added respect from patriots with her new workplace requirement that liberals are declaring to be discriminatory. Pearson announced in an e-mail sent out on October 1, that all staff members must only speak English when in the office. This didn’t go over well with whiny foreigners, who want to have the benefit of working in America and force others to comply with their culture too, regardless of the inconvenience it is to customers.
According to WRAL, Pearson indicated in the staff-wide e-mail that English-speaking employees have expressed concern for other languages spoken in the office, making it difficult to communicate and, ultimately, complete tasks. “For the comfort of employees and to be respectful of others who do not share that language, staff are asked to speak English in the office when not on breaks or personal time,” her email read.
Within a matter of days of the notice being sent out, liberal mouthpieces from groups like the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission went on the attack of Pearson and the heath department. In defense of those who they feel are being discriminated against, George Eppsteiner, an attorney for the Social Justice group, claimed that Pearson’s assertion that other employees complained about the language barrier couldn’t be correct.
Referring to the rule as “problematic,” Eppsteiner insisted that there “didn’t seem to be any pressing ‘comfort of employees’ to implement this type of policy.” It’s unclear how he came to that conclusion, other than to only assume people were okay with it since he thinks they should be. But whether employees expressed frustration to their boss that their fellow co-workers rambled on in another language or not, shouldn’t matter. If Pearson or anyone other employer wants to make this rule, it’s within their right to do so, since communication is key in getting a job done, especially one you’re being paid to do.
What is in fact “problematic” is that when languages other than English are spoken on the job, foreign-speaking workers can communicate at length with each other in front of a co-worker about that person, who doesn’t understand what they are saying. It brings down the morale of the group, and that’s only one way it negatively impacts business and productivity.
Even as much as the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission probably didn’t want to admit it, James Ryan, a spokesman for the group, said that “employees have the right to speak other languages as long as they do not inconvenience customers or co-workers or cause any trouble for their employer in doing so.”
That is to say that Pearson is right in being able to require that her department is an English-only workplace, but he has to add a liberal caveat to that just to stay true to his purpose. “Especially unacceptable are policies that target one or more ethnic groups for different language rules from others,” Ryan added. What he fails to realize is that Pearson isn’t targeting a specific ethnic group. If you’re a natural-born citizen, who is bilingual in English and another language, you can only use English. He concluded his statement that the EEOC would not oppose Pearson’s rule if it can be justified as a necessity for business — which it should be.
(via: Freedom Daily)
