California: Skilled Healthcare to Pay Up to $450,000 for National Origin Discrimination

[Harold Schiffman]

Skilled Healthcare to Pay Up to $450,000 for National Origin Discrimination
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 :: Staff infoZine

Nursing Home Companies Imposed English-Only Rule on Spanish Speakers
While Permitting Other Foreign Languages in Workplace, EEOC Alleged


 Los Angeles, CA - infoZine - Skilled Healthcare Group, Inc., Skilled
Healthcare, LLC, and other affiliated companies, will pay up to
$450,000 and provide significant remedial relief to a class of
Hispanic employees at its nursing homes and assisted living facilities
who were subject to harassment, different terms and conditions of
employment, promotion, compensation, and treatment through the
implementation of an English-only rule that was only enforced against
Hispanics, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
announced today.

The EEOC filed suit in 2005 against the defendant companies alleging
national origin discrimination on behalf of Hispanics under Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act in the U.S. District Court for the Central
District of California, which approved the three-year consent decree
settling the matter.

“As our country’s workforce becomes increasingly diverse, employers
must be vigilant in ensuring that if English-only rules are necessary,
they are not discriminatory,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J.
Ishimaru. “National origin discrimination is an abomination to our
country, which was founded by immigrants and has prospered from
welcoming immigrants.”

The lawsuit arose from a charge of discrimination by a monolingual
janitor, Jose Zazueta, who was fired from defendants’ Royal wood Care
Center in Torrance, Calif., for violating the company’s English-only
policy. By contrast, other employees at defendants’ facilities who
spoke Tagalog were not disciplined or terminated for speaking that
language at work.

The EEOC identified a total of 53 current and former Hispanic
employees at facilities in California and Texas who were subjected to
disparate treatment and harassment based on their national origin and
shared Spanish language. The EEOC alleged that some workers were
prohibited from speaking Spanish to Spanish-speaking residents of the
facility, or disciplined for speaking Spanish in the parking lot while
on breaks. Additionally, the EEOC alleged that defendants gave
Hispanic employees less desirable work than non-Hispanic counterparts,
paid them less, and promoted them less often.

“The EEOC commends Skilled Healthcare for cooperating with us to
establish meaningful mechanisms to advance equal employment
opportunities for all workers,” said EEOC Los Angeles Regional
Attorney Anna Park. “In the most diverse state in the nation,
employers should not single out certain languages or cultures for
harsher treatment.”
As part of the, monetary relief for class members, the consent decree
provides for the employers to offer English language classes to the 53
claimants. The three-year consent decree also requires that employees
receive annual training regarding national origin discrimination; that
defendants educate facility residents and patients regarding the
rights of the employees under Title VII; that defendants designate an
EEO monitor so that future discrimination complaints are closely
monitored; and that defendants report annually to the EEOC regarding
their employment practices.

EEOC’s Los Angeles District Director Olophius Perry added, “Employees
and applicants should never be discriminated against because of their
language or country of origin. To single out one language but not
another for harsher treatment is old-fashioned discrimination.”

According to its web site, Skilled Health Care Group, Inc. operates
skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, and other
facilities totaling 10,100 licensed beds in California, Texas, Kansas,
Missouri, New Mexico, and Nevada, mostly in large urban or suburban
markets.

In Fiscal Year 2008, national origin discrimination charge filings
with EEOC offices nationwide increased to a record high 10,601, up 13%
from the prior year. Of the total national origin cases, 204 involved
English-only rules, up from 125 such cases in FY 2006 and 32 cases in
FY 1996.

http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/35365/
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