Alexander tries again on English-only workplace legislation

The Associated Press

NASHVILLE — Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander is again trying to pass legislation that lets companies ban workers from ever speaking a language other than English in the workplace.
Companies already can require workers to speak English when talking to customers or co-workers, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission spokesman David Grinberg said.
“What we are concerned about is extreme situations,” Grinberg said. “We filed one suit on behalf of employees who were fired for speaking Spanish in the break room, talking to family members on the phone, and in another case saying ’good morning’ in the parking lot.”
Alexander’s Protection of English in the Workplace Act would prevent the commission from getting involved in language discrimination suits.
He sponsored a similar bill last year that passed the Senate but died in a conference committee.
The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission sees only a handful of complaints about English-only rules each year and files suit in even fewer.
Last year, just 32 of the roughly 75,000 complaints made to the commission were related to English-only rules. The commission has filed only 29 suits against companies with English-only policies in the last 10 years, and none of them were in Tennessee.
Alexander, a Maryville native, explained his reasons for sponsoring the legislation by saying, “It devalues our language and damages this country when you tell a shoe shop owner in Tennessee that he can’t create a rule requiring his employees to speak the English language. It puts us in danger of becoming a United Nations, not the United States.”
Alexander, who is running for re-election, signed a law making English the official language of Tennessee when he was governor in the 1980s.
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