Efforts to Limit English-in-the-Workplace Lawsuits Introduced in House

U.S. English Chairman sends letter in support of Stearns Amendment

Rep. Cliff Stearns today introduced an amendment to the Commerce and Justice Appropriations bill to prohibit any funds to be used in the prosecution of companies which require their employees to speak English in the workplace. The amendment, offered to H.R. 3093, would prohibit the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from using taxpayer dollars to pursue actions against companies with English-in-the-workplace rules. Numerous court cases have validated the common sense notion that employers in the United States have a general right to require employees to speak English on the job, but the EEOC has attacked aspects of these rules as being pretexts for "national origin discrimination," a legal theory that Congress has never passed into law.

Below is a letter written by U.S. English, Inc. Chairman of the Board Mauro E. Mujica to Rep. Cliff Stearns in support of his amendment:

Dear Representative Stearns:

On behalf of the 1.8 million members of U.S. English, we wholeheartedly endorse your amendment to prohibit the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from pursuing litigation against employers that require their employees to speak English. The EEOC has crossed over a line in its overzealous pursuit of companies that require English in the workplace, and only the Congress can bring the EEOC back to its intended mission.

The EEOC's dramatic overreaching is illustrated by its persecution of a Salvation Army store in Framingham, Massachusetts. Remarkably, the EEOC is suing the store despite clear legal authority that the employer's written English in the workplace requirement does not violate federal civil rights law. See Cosme v. The Salvation Army, 284 F. Supp.2d 229 (D.Mass). In the present case, the EEOC's novel claim is that because the Salvation Army's has not previously punished employees who violated this rule, the companies' present insistence on the English amounts to "national origin discrimination."

In the upside-down logic of the EEOC, a merciless insistence on English in the workplace at all times does not violate the law, but an employer who decides to graciously let violations slide occasionally is discriminatory. By this logic, the Salvation Army would have been better off immediately firing employees who deviate from English in the workplace, which hardly vindicates the interests of employees the EEOC claims to protect.

The practical, real world effects of the EEOC's enforcement priorities are threefold. First, the proliferation of English-related suits will cause employers facing close hiring decisions to hire defensively, to the detriment of new immigrants with marginal English proficiency. Once hired, an employee struggling with English should expect a draconian response from an English-insisting employer, lest mercy later be used as evidence against the employer in a discrimination lawsuit.

Second, while the children of immigrants typically learn English in our school systems, adult immigrants are most likely to learn (or improve) language skills for work-related reasons, often through programs hosted by employers. This arrangement is ordinarily a win-win: the immigrant is encouraged to gain a skill that improves work prospects and civic engagement, and the employer benefits from having employees that can communicate with one another. The EEOC's policy takes a mutually beneficial situation and injects the constant specter of litigation and adversarialism.

Third, since funds are fungible, every dollar that the EEOC uses to pursue these cases is a dollar not spent on pursuing to kinds of invidious discrimination on the basis of race and national origin which the EEOC was created to combat.

Your amendment will ensure that the EEOC spends its appropriation on clearing off a case backlog that is, according to a recent statement by EEOC spokesman David Grinberg, at least 46,000 cases. However ill-advised the EEOC's past litigation decisions, your amendment only restricts these suits prospectively, which shows admirable deference to the Executive Branch.

The EEOC's mostly laudable work is one reason why our nation is truly united. While we are united as a people by our workplace enforcement of equality, we are also united by our ability to communicate in a common language. Equality, one pillar of our national unity, need not dislodge another pillar of our national unity–the English language. By voting in favor of your amendment, the Congress will be ensuring that we retain our commitment to true equality and the unity that is a blessing of our common language.

Sincerely,

Mauro E. Mujica

Chairman of the Board

U.S. English, Inc.