Proposed Kissimee language policy

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Editorial: Policy not out of line

A proposed city of Kissimmee language policy that would require all
employees to speak English when communicating by radio, in emergency
situations and in certain training exercises is not unreasonable and would
not discriminate against employees whose native language is not English.
City officials rightly are disturbed by some media reports that said they
are trying to silence foreign language-speaking employees from conversing
in their own language. That is not the case. The policy, if adopted, would
not ban employees from casual conversations in their native tongue nor
when helping customers who do not speak English. Too many people jumped to
the wrong conclusions and some media reports distorted the issue.

In an emergency, we want all parties speaking the same language it could
mean the difference between life and death. However, we also want another
language spoken if it would help the situation. All radio communications
be-tween city employees should be in English.  When an employee is
communicating with a supervisor that does not speak a foreign language,
then the employee should speak English. And if a common language were
needed for a group of employees to be more efficient while working,
English should be used.

The proposed policy does not violate any federal equal opportunity
guidelines because it is intended for business purposes and there is
nothing in it discriminatory to any ethnic group. The rise of bilingualism
in the workplace represents a cultural and sometimes difficult-to-accept
shift for many Americans because we are not a multilingual country. That
needs to change. We must take Spanish seriously, given the number of
Hispanics in our community. Also remember that English and Spanish may be
less relevant in the global marketplace in the future as 425 million
people now speak Spanish, 514 million people speak English and more than 1
billion speak Chinese.

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