Workforce Language Services

Many undocumented workers have learned a valuable lesson after being injured on the job: “Don’t be afraid to talk to a lawyer.”

CNN reports that two undocumented workers recently won settlements totaling $3.85 million after suffering workplace accidents. Undocumented workers suffer accidents and death disproportionally due largely to lack of safety protections. Illegal or not, they have the same right to claim damages as citizens or legal residents.

Although it is illegal for an employer to knowingly hire a worker who is undocumented, according to the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigration Affairs, if an undocumented worker is hired by an employer, he or she then has the right to be paid minimum wage and overtime, the right to health protection and workplace safety, and the right to organize to improve labor conditions.

“Each of these men was injured in the course of their work on construction sites, and their immigration status was irrelevant to their right to seek redress for those injuries,” [Brian] O’Dwyer explained in a statement. “Enforcing laws requiring a safe workplace serves the interests of all Americans, whether they are citizens or not.”

These settlements bring much needed notice to unsafe conditions at work-sites (especially in construction) that undocumented workers face. Employers should be encouraged to make sure all workers understand how to protect themselves.

Read the full story here.

An online article suggests some reasons why a company would want to offer English classes to its employees:

Some companies that don’t provide English language skills training said they would do so if it would increase productivity (27%), increase employee engagement (17.7%), improve employees’ career opportunities—regardless of what their native language is (17.7%), improve workplace safety (12.5%), improve bilingual employees’ career opportunities (11.5%), reduce turnover (5.2%), and demonstrate the company’s commitment to immigrant communities (5.2%).

The article also recommends looking into community resources for employees to access English lessons as well as considering providing classes on site.  While onsite classes would obviously cost more for the company, one of the benefits would be the ability to target the lessons to what employees need to know to be successful and safe in that particular industry.

To read the entire article, click here.

With funding support from the Missouri Foundation for Health, Centro Latino will provide health literacy and access for Latinos in mid-Missouri.  Thomas Adams, lead program officer, states that they already have various programs with components for Latinos, but this new initiative solely focuses on helping low-income, rural Latinos understand and access health care.

The agency is not new to assisting this demographic with their health care needs, but the new model will essentially allow them to guide limited English proficient Latinos through a health care system they may not understand very well:

Public health and social service have always been a large part of Centro Latino’s service to the community. Over the past decade, it has helped visitors with many procedures that can make health care complicated for those who struggle with English or are new to the area, like the filling out of medical forms, the translation of documents, the procuring of care for those without insurance or documentation.

“I just want the people to feel comfortable and supported and not alone.  Many times when one arrives here they feel very alone,” said Zapata, who has already begun her work with Promotores.

With the new program, Crespi expects its public health and social service efforts to be even more organized than before. He also hopes that the program will encourage more people to take advantage of the number of resources provided by Centro Latino (ESL classes, Spanish courses and an after-school youth program).

Follow this link to read the entire article from the Missourian.

A scholarly feature article in the Migration Information Source examines the role of the feeling of belonging in the process of immigrant integration in modern times.  Drawing from ethnography, the article focuses on the immigrant experience in England, but the author also identifies 10 feedback circuits that are application to any country in the world in which immigrants reside.

These 10 feedback circuits, or areas from which people receive messages about belonging run the gamut from the familial to the cultural to those that necessitate support from the larger culture.  A few of these markers are particularly interesting to those striving for cultural competence:

8. Everyday public services that are of the people as well as for the people. In rural societies, police officers, health professionals, and teachers live in the same communities they serve. The patterns in cities are less clear-cut, and the mismatch between public services and communities creates tensions, such as the continuing battles over Muslim schools, or health care that is attuned to Koranic teachings.

A related issue — acute now for long-standing working-class communities — is the perceived injustice of decisions and distributions. In the United Kingdom, public hostility to asylum seekers often comes from the perception that asylum seekers have privileged access to resources.

9. Homes. If people like you, your family, and your friends can afford housing in the community (to rent or to buy), and the owners or landlords are willing to rent or sell to you and those like you, then you are receiving a positive message.

Public-housing policy also matters. The Young Foundation’s work showed the very damaging effects of UK public-housing policies that separated families in an effort to allocate strictly according to need. Although classic social-policy terms justify this type of rationing, such policies essentially told local people they had no claim on their locality.

10. Law and its enforcement. The legitimacy of law — that it reflects the community’s values and protects its interests — is critical to belonging. In many places, new negotiations are needed over nonnegotiable rules (for example, on the place of forced marriage).

To read the entire article, click here.

Chi Town Daily News recently reported on the results of focus groups of young minorities and their perception of AIDS awareness campaigns.  The study found that minorities were distrustful of both the message and the medium used to convey the message:

Their attitudes demonstrated that AIDS awareness initiatives targeted at young people – and blacks, in particular – failed to resonate, says Anjanette Chan Tack, a doctoral student who worked on the study. A 30-second public service announcement bookended by sexually suggestive programming struck participants as ironic.

“They were saying, ‘OK, sure, you’ve got this flash on the screen for 30 seconds…but this in a sea of music videos where people are engaging in sex,’” she says. “You don’t see people using protection; all this stuff is glamorized, and in the middle there is a commercial telling you to protect yourself.”

Participants wondered how they could take the messaging seriously, Chan Tack says.

The article then moves on to describe how public health groups are using the lessons learned from these focus groups to create a message that resonates with minority populations.

A Newburyport, Massachusetts local paper profiled a Brazlian woman who works for the courts as an interpeter.  The article details not only her language skills and passion for travel, but her take on the important work of working as an interpreter. 

The article also highlights the complex interplay between the role of interpreter as a bridge for non-English speakers and the need to remain objective and simply transmit the ideas from one language to another:

There is no program to teach them about the law. They may get arrested because they don’t have the appropriate driver’s license. Even when they become aware, they don’t understand completely if they don’t have an interpreter. For example, they might think if they go to court, the judge can give them a driver’s license.”

 Although Dutra understands firsthand the problems that immigrants sometimes face while adapting to a new country and culture, her job requires her to remain objective.

 The job of the interpreter is to translate exactly what has been said, she explains. The interpreter is not an advocate for the victim.

 “We’re just there to convey information to both sides,” Dutra says. “We’re not an advocate at all. We can’t give the victim any moral support. That’s for the victim’s advocate. We have to remain impartial.”

To read the entire article, click here. 

From a Christian Science Article found on Diversity Spectrum’s website:

According to one study, 62 percent of state workers who complained of sexual harassment reported that they faced retaliation in the form of lowered job evaluations, denial of promotions, and being transferred or fired.

Based on this statistic, it’s no wonder that employees are fearful of speaking up about breaches in proper behavior.  Of course, if an employee files a complaint the law protects that employee from any retaliation.  But up until the Supreme Court’s recent decision, an employee was not protected from retaliation if they’d answered questions about harrassment but not filed an official complaint.

To read about the nuances of the case that brought about this decision as well as commentary, click here.

An article in the Dallas Morning News describes the current scarcity of licensed court interpreters in multilingual Texas.  This scarcity is attributed to the rigorous certification procedure, which one interpreter points out is a positive thing because Texas is a state with the death penalty. 

As a border state, Texas has a unique cultural mix that integrates Spanish into daily life and Anglicisms which creep into speech in Spanish.  This, along with false cognates and idioms, makes the interpreters job all the more complex and specific to the region:

Precision was at play at a recent training session for court interpreters in McKinney. Elegible in Mexico commonly means a person who legally can be elected. It doesn’t mean eligible.

“It is an Anglocism; but Anglocisms are becoming more and more common,” Holly Mikkelson said as she led the training for the Texas Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators.

Mikkelson warns about the word crimen. It doesn’t mean just any crime but is instead reserved for unusually violent crimes. In English, the word “delinquent” refers to a petty offense by a minor. But in Spanish, delinquencia can mean any crime by a person of any age.

To read the article, click here.

The Society for Human Resource Management’s January cover story is about workplace English language learning.  Rich with information, this article includes a key quote:

“You don’t need English to work at Miller & Long,” says Myles Gladstone, the company’s vice president of human resources, who is fluent in English and Spanish. “But you do need English to get ahead.”

The article points out that the initial impetus for supporting English language learning is safety.  But employers who truly support the upward mobility for their foreign born employees create opportunities for them to learn English for personal growth. 

The SHRM story notes that while supporting employees in their English language acquisition improves the bottom line as well as staff morale, few companies are actually providing employees with opportunities:

Despite growing popularity, employer-provided ESOL classes are rare. Only about 10 percent of employers responding to Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) studies in each of the last two years said they offered ESOL classes as a benefit. Last summer, 24 percent of respondents to a SHRM online survey said they cover some or all of the costs associated with English classes.

Click here to read this informative article as well as access several other articles, videos, and white papers dedicated to this issue.

Any Spanish speaker, native or non-native, knows that certain words in the language mean very different things depending on the country one is from.  Someting that is used in every day speech in Mexico might deeply offend someone from the Dominican Republic and vice verse. 

An article in the Yuma Sun describes one such incident that riled people up at a high school soccer game:

This case here, coach is yelling out to his players, players are hearing it left and right, nothing is done about it because it’s in Spanish. That’s a huge issue and an issue I want to speak up about.”

Nicewander said the injury was the turning point in the game. It happened at the 6:23 mark with his team up 2-0. Exactly two minutes later, Yuma High had its first goal, and with 1:46 left the Criminals tied the game.

“When you have a coach on the sidelines yelling ‘break them,’ ‘chocalo,’ smash into them, then you see a player go down an get carted off in an ambulance, it’s natural for a player to say ‘Wow, I’m not being protected, so if I come in on this guy, and he throws an elbow at me and I get hurt, what’s going to come out of it?’” Nicewander said.

This is a good example of people being overly sensitive to language use and looking for an offense where there was just a misunderstanding.  Rather than make it about lack of sportsmanship, it could have been about increasing understanding about word connotations and being more careful. 

To read the article, click here.