Firefighters Being Fired For Not Speaking Spanish

[DrunkBomber]

Link

 

Enjoy. I would hope that there isnt anyone that can possibly side with this but Ive been shocked before. Have at it.

[NorthSideSox72]

Well that's just idiotic. I mean, I understand the rule - that the crew boss needs to speak the same language as the rest of the crew. But since English is far and away the dominant language in this country, the requirement should be for the firefighters COMING IN to speak English. Clearly.

 

And besides, as a temporary fix, wouldn't it be better to divide the fire companies by language capabilities, then to lay people off?

 

[EvilMonkey]

Multiculturism and all this bending over and taking it in the ass in the name of 'fairness' and 'diversity' will be the end of our country. If the firefighters cannot speak English, they should have never been hired to begin with.

[DrunkBomber]

Well that's just idiotic. I mean, I understand the rule - that the crew boss needs to speak the same language as the rest of the crew. But since English is far and away the dominant language in this country, the requirement should be for the firefighters COMING IN to speak English. Clearly.

 

And besides, as a temporary fix, wouldn't it be better to divide the fire companies by language capabilities, then to lay people off?

lol. good point, I didnt even think about that. If this was a concern why not have all the Spanish speaking firefighters work for a Spanish speaking supervisor and the English speakers with an English speaking supervisor.

[lostfan]

I dont have speakers at work can someone summarize?

[lostfan]

Multiculturism and all this bending over and taking it in the ass in the name of 'fairness' and 'diversity' will be the end of our country. If the firefighters cannot speak English, they should have never been hired to begin with.

Multiculturalism + diversity + fair treatment for all = ok

 

Caving in to people who refuse to learn the language we've spoken here since before it existed and doing generally unreasonable things = not ok

[NorthSideSox72]

Multiculturism and all this bending over and taking it in the ass in the name of 'fairness' and 'diversity' will be the end of our country. If the firefighters cannot speak English, they should have never been hired to begin with.

They require these firefighters to pass a physical fitness test, be able to lift a large amount of weight, be free of certain medical problems, pass drug screens, and an assortment of other job-related requirements. I see no reason why English shouldn't be one of them. No one is saying they have to speak English at any other time - just in the line of duty, so that, you know, people don't die.

 

[Texsox]

I wasn't clear based on the report if these were temporary workers fulfilling an urgent need, or they are being hired as permanent employees. If they are temps, segregating like NSS suggests would seem a better solution. At the minimum, how many words are really necessary to know? They probably do not need to be 100% fluent, but should know specific commands concerning firefighting. And that challenge would face native speakers as well. Every job has specific jargon and terms that a lay person would not know.

 

Private companies down here would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did not have Spanish speaking employees. The best customers are our Mexican nationals that visit and shop. Likewise, we appreciate government employees who are bilingual and can efficiently service everyone. It is like the Visa check card commercial. A non Spanish speaker would just grind everything to a halt.

 

Bottom line, I just cannot agree with laying off any worker for not speaking Spanish. Border Patrol trains all their employees in Spanish or French, depending on where they will be stationed. Seems if this is that big of an issue in Oregon, they could offer a similar training.

[Texsox]

If the firefighters cannot speak English, they should have never been hired to begin with.

 

The report opens with "There is an urgent need for firefighters in the west to fight two dozen wild fires"

 

Are you suggesting let the fires burn until enough English speaking firefighters are hired?

[Texsox]

BTW, this is a two year old story

Fire Crew Bosses Who Can't Speak Spanish Can Lose Jobs

Oregon Begins To Strictly Enforce Language Rule

POSTED: 3:46 pm MDT June 22, 2006UPDATED: 2:26 pm MDT June 23, 2006With 24 major wildfires burning across the southwestern United States, fire officials need every firefighter they can get. They've done that in Oregon, but it's created another problem.Officials are now having to lay off some of the bosses who manage those firefighting crews because the bosses are not bilingual. Many of the newer hires in Oregon only speak Spanish."What we do know is 85 percent of the crew makeup is of Hispanic descent," said Jim Walker, with the Oregon Department of Forestry.The state said all bosses must speak the same language of their crew on the fire lines for safety reasons. They want to make sure that the leader of the crews can quickly communicate during an emergencey if the fire turns or if there is another problem on the fire lines."Our main concern is that they are safe, and they are in a safe environment, and a lot of that deals with communication," Walker said.Because of the state's language requirement, Jaime Pickering can no longer work as a crew boss and supervise 20 firefighters. He can only manage a squad of four firefighters."If you have one Spanish guy on the crew, as an English crew boss, you can no longer be a crew boss. You have to step back to a squad boss, which is a demotion," Pickering said.The state of Oregon actually made the change in 2003, after a devastating wildfire season in 2002 had contractors scrambling to find help. The state just started strictly monitoring the law this year, as Hispanics continued to fill fire lines."I think the (rule) is good, because that's for safety purpose," said Manuel Franco, who is a contractor for fire crews. He thinks the state's rule is necessary for worker safety."If there's a rock rolling down, everybody should understand that," Franco said.But he does wish it were different."We're living here. We should speak the language," he said.So why couldn't the state require that these crew members speak English? The state doesn't have a clear answer."If it comes down to a safety issue, and it's determined that's the only way we can have people safely on an incident, then yes," Walker said.

 

Copyright 2006 by TheDenverChannel.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[southsider2k5]

Well that's just idiotic. I mean, I understand the rule - that the crew boss needs to speak the same language as the rest of the crew. But since English is far and away the dominant language in this country, the requirement should be for the firefighters COMING IN to speak English. Clearly.

 

And besides, as a temporary fix, wouldn't it be better to divide the fire companies by language capabilities, then to lay people off?

 

I can see the segregation and discrimination lawsuits pouring in from here...

[southsider2k5]

I wasn't clear based on the report if these were temporary workers fulfilling an urgent need, or they are being hired as permanent employees. If they are temps, segregating like NSS suggests would seem a better solution. At the minimum, how many words are really necessary to know? They probably do not need to be 100% fluent, but should know specific commands concerning firefighting. And that challenge would face native speakers as well. Every job has specific jargon and terms that a lay person would not know.

 

Does it work both ways?

[Texsox]

At the root seems to be this Oregon law that requires the supervisor to speak the language of all the Crew members. I wonder if this was to encourage the hiring of more English speaking firefighters, or more bilingual supervisors? Either way, it seems to have backfired on them (no pun intended).

[Texsox]

Does it work both ways?

Actually in my mind it should work 1.5 ways. At some point every firefighter should be speaking firefighter's English. At least enough to maintain safety on the job.

 

Like any other job skill used in evaluating employees for promotion, being bilingual should be viewed as a positive attribute and added to reasons to promote someone. Not speaking Spanish should not be used as a reason to demote someone.

[Texsox]

Let me toss another reason why each firefighter should have a rudimentary knowledge of English, protecting the public. There should be a presumption that the public speaks the majority language, English. I understand these are forest firemen, not house firemen, but we do see these fires encroaching on homes.

[GoSox05]

Multiculturism and all this bending over and taking it in the ass in the name of 'fairness' and 'diversity' will be the end of our country. If the firefighters cannot speak English, they should have never been hired to begin with.

 

 

I would love to hear your ideas on how to stop multiculturism and save America.

[DrunkBomber]

I wasn't clear based on the report if these were temporary workers fulfilling an urgent need, or they are being hired as permanent employees. If they are temps, segregating like NSS suggests would seem a better solution. At the minimum, how many words are really necessary to know? They probably do not need to be 100% fluent, but should know specific commands concerning firefighting. And that challenge would face native speakers as well. Every job has specific jargon and terms that a lay person would not know.

 

Private companies down here would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did not have Spanish speaking employees. The best customers are our Mexican nationals that visit and shop. Likewise, we appreciate government employees who are bilingual and can efficiently service everyone. It is like the Visa check card commercial. A non Spanish speaker would just grind everything to a halt.

 

Bottom line, I just cannot agree with laying off any worker for not speaking Spanish. Border Patrol trains all their employees in Spanish or French, depending on where they will be stationed. Seems if this is that big of an issue in Oregon, they could offer a similar training.

The original story I heard was on the radio and from what I gathered it sounded like it was a state job, not temporary.

[Texsox]

The original story I heard was on the radio and from what I gathered it sounded like it was a state job, not temporary.

Really? All the dates on the stories seem to be from 2006?

[jackie hayes]

Why not require the firefighters to speak English? Presumably because you need 20x as many, so you can't pick and choose as much as you would in an ideal world.

 

If that's the case, having supervisors who speak Spanish becomes a critical issue in terms of job performance and safety, so I wouldn't really have a problem with this.

[NorthSideSox72]

Why not require the firefighters to speak English? Presumably because you need 20x as many, so you can't pick and choose as much as you would in an ideal world.

 

If that's the case, having supervisors who speak Spanish becomes a critical issue in terms of job performance and safety, so I wouldn't really have a problem with this.

Let's assume for a second that they really can't get enough English-speaking firefighters. I am not sure I fully buy that, but, let's go with it for now.

 

Since you have so many open slots with money sitting around not being paid out, why not pay for some short classes on basic English? Or heck, even Spanish? And why not have language-specific companies, like the UN does with multi-national troops? Laying off or demoting people is just a stupid way to handle this situation.

 

[jackie hayes]

Let's assume for a second that they really can't get enough English-speaking firefighters. I am not sure I fully buy that, but, let's go with it for now.

 

Since you have so many open slots with money sitting around not being paid out, why not pay for some short classes on basic English? Or heck, even Spanish? And why not have language-specific companies, like the UN does with multi-national troops? Laying off or demoting people is just a stupid way to handle this situation.

Offering classes was my first thought, too, but it may not be practical. It did say that there is an "urgent" need, so there may simply not be enough time to train the supervisors. It may also depend on the turnover. If there's high turnover, people will be leaving as soon as they're trained.

 

Having language-specific crews could work if all the firefighters are mobile enough that you can rearrange everyone properly. But that, again, may not be workable.

 

Any good journalist would have addressed those questions, of course.

[Controlled Chaos]

Some info

 

Firefighting crew bosses required to speak English

 

 

The old saying, “Rumor can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on,” is borne out in information circulating on the web and elsewhere that claims the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) is firing and demoting fire crew bosses that do not speak Spanish.

 

This is not the case. Here are the facts:

 

ODF has no requirement that its employees speak Spanish, and does not demote or fire anyone because they don’t speak Spanish. And to our knowledge, no crew boss on the private contract fire crews we use has ever been fired because of inability to speak Spanish.

ODF and its partner agencies contract with private companies to supply fire crews for frontline firefighting work. The crews work under the guidance of incident management teams fielded by ODF and other agencies to manage large firefighting operations.

Because English is the language of firefighting in the United States, we must have the ability to communicate with all crews. Accordingly, the contract requires that the leaders of contract crews speak English. This requirement covers the crew boss and the three squad bosses on a typical 20-person crew.

Companies may choose whom they hire for their crews. If a company elects to hire employees who do not speak English, then the supervisors of that crew must speak English as well as the language of any crew members who don’t speak English. This is a matter of good communication, safety, and effectiveness for the agencies that hire crews under the contract. Over the years, this system has established a record of solid firefighting performance and safety.

 

Additional information

The makeup of the private contract fire crews that ODF and its state and federal partner agencies in the Pacific Northwest use to fight wildfire has changed over the past 10 years or so. At one time, most of the crews were made up of English speakers. But today, a large percentage of the crew members are Latino. While many of these Latino firefighters speak English, a significant number speak only Spanish.

 

As the number of non-English-speaking firefighters rose, ODF realized that their safety was increasingly being placed at risk. Also, their work effectiveness depends on being able to understand orders clearly. So, the language stipulation described above was added to the interagency contract.

 

This stipulation places the responsibility on the crew companies: If they choose to hire non-English-speaking firefighters for a crew, then they must have bilingual crew leaders. If they hire only English-speaking firefighters, then the crew leaders need only have the ability to speak English. Experience over several fire seasons under this rule has shown that it is adequate to provide for the safety of the crewmembers as well as the overall work effectiveness of the crews. It has not been found necessary to require that all crewmembers have the ability to speak English.

 

Some have suggested that ODF should simply require all members of private fire crews to have the ability to speak English. But is beyond the agency's power to shape the available labor pool.

 

An historical perspective may be helpful. Back when the Pacific Northwest's timber industry was at its peak, contract fire crews were unnecessary. The large forest products companies employed thousands of woods workers, and these well-trained and equipped personnel could leave their work on a moment's notice to fight fire. In addition, the federal land management agencies had large nunbers of field employees trained as firefighters. But when the timber industry contracted in the 1980s, both the state and federal agencies found themselves without sufficient resources to fight large fires.

 

The Oregon Department of Forestry responded to this shortage by creating a contract to procure private fire crews. It worked well, and soon the contract was expanded into an interagency agreement that supplied crews to ODF's partner state and federal agencies in Washington as well as Oregon. Today, private contract fire crews continue to serve as a key element of the Pacific Northwest's wildland firefighting forces.

 

 

ODF is committed to hiring the safest and most-effective firefighting crews possible. If you would like more information about this or any other firefighting contract crew issue, please contact Rod Nichols, ODF Public Affairs Specialist, 503-945-7425, or rnichols@odf.state.or.us

 

 

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[jackie hayes]

Good job, Fox News!

[Texsox]

So basically Oregon is requiring private crews have an English speaking chief, plus Spanish speaking, if that private company employs any Spanish speaking employees. Seems like a fair provision to write into the contract. Far different than if they were state employees.

[DrunkBomber]

Really? All the dates on the stories seem to be from 2006?

I heard it today on Sirius radio but didnt hear them mention a date. I assumed it was current because they were talking about it today. Is there a chance that this specific story is old and something similar happened more recently?