A U.S. magistrate's ruling against a DeSoto telecommunications firm that fired 13 employees who protested the company's English- only policy is a warning to other employers, attorneys and workplace experts say.
"A lot of folks aren't aware that this is a form of discrimination that they can be protected from," Ed Chen, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of northern California, said Wednesday. "And a lot of employers aren't either."
U.S. Magistrate Paul Stickney, ruling in a suit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, ordered Premier Operator Services Inc. to pay the 13 former employees a total of $59,284 in back wages and $50,000 each in compensatory damages - the maximum allowed by law.
It was the largest monetary award in an EEOC lawsuit filed on behalf of employees who had been fired for not speaking English at work.
Judge Stickney made the ruling last week, and the EEOC announced it Tuesday.
"I anticipate that there will be an increase in litigation of this type as more people become aware that they can do something about these policies," said EEOC attorney Toby Wosk Costas, who argued the case.
Premier, which filed for bankruptcy in December 1999 and is no longer in business, did not attempt to defend itself. The only former Premier official who testified spoke on behalf of the EEOC.
Company officials couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.
In a 1998 interview, company president Eric Brown said he instituted the English-only policy to protect operators from being insulted in a language they didn't understand.
"I didn't fire anybody over the language policy. We just said no discrimination, no slander. If you must do that, find another job," Mr. Brown said.
Because Premier has filed for bankruptcy, the EEOC is trying to figure out who will pay the judgment. Premier fired the 13 Hispanic operators in early 1996 after they protested or refused to sign the firm's English-only policy.
The policy barred workers from speaking Spanish to anyone except Spanish-speaking customers while they were on the premises - including the lunchroom.
"Since they were hired for their ability to speak Spanish, it was particularly ironic that they were punished when they did so at lunch," Ms. Costas said.
Multilingual lunchrooms are becoming more common because there are more non-English speakers in the American workforce than ever, she said. That demographic shift has contributed to a nearly 70 percent increase in English-only complaints in the last four years - from 77 in 1996 to 253 last year.
This year, employees have filed 355 such complaints with the EEOC, Ms. Costas said. Increasingly, those complaints are ending in court or company settlements. Some examples:
*Earlier this month, Watlow Batavia Inc., a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Watlow Electric Manufacturing Co, agreed to pay eight former employees $192,500 to settle an English-only complaint. The EEOC said the company's Hispanic workers were discriminated against, unfairly disciplined and fired for speaking Spanish to co-workers and friends at a suburban Chicago plant.
*Kentucky nursing home operator Vencor Inc. agreed last year to pay $52,500 to a group of employees who spoke Spanish; Tagalog, a Philippine language; and Haitian-Creole. The workers' suit charged that non-native speakers were harassed and disciplined for speaking languages other than English at Vencor's Fifth Avenue Health Care Center in San Rafael, Calif., north of San Francisco.
English-only policies are legal when another language can hinder safety or communication with customers, but they are rarely enforceable when they infringe on personal time such as lunch and breaks, said William Harrell, executive director of the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
"The EEOC will very rarely file a suit unless they are 100 percent sure they are going to win," he said. "When they file, it's a very good gauge of the law."
But many employers and employees aren't aware of the law and how the EEOC can help them, Ms. Costas said. So organizations such as the Language Rights Project, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the EEOC are giving more speeches and filing more suits than ever before on English-only issues.
"And I think this case sends a message to employers that enforcement of these policies can lead to liability," said Ms. Costas.
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