juddling Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 (edited) Fire Crew Bosses Who Can't Speak Spanish Can Lose Jobs Oregon Begins To Strictly Enforce Language Law With 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. 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," said Jim Walker, with the Oregon Department of Forestry. "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," said Jaime Pickering, a firefighter squad boss. The state of Oregon actually made the change in 2003. It just started strictly monitoring the law this year ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ok...let me get this straight. You have a crew chief with many years experience. along come new hires who can't speak English (why should THAT stop them being hired ) and so the crew chief suffers a demotion because of a language problem????!!!! OMFG!!!!!!!!! I'm not one for unions but i hope there is a huge fight over this FU Oregon!!! :finger :finger :finger :finger :finger :finger :finger :finger :finger :finger Edited June 23, 2006 by juddling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NUKE_CLEVELAND Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 That's just f***ing disgusting. Another example of this country bending over into every contorted position to accomodate a bunch of foreginers who cant/wont learn our language ( 50 bucks says most of those people are illegals ). :headshake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthSideSox72 Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 That is just wrong. And not just because it is unfair to the fire bosses - but because that situation COULD be managed better even with the law as-is. Why in the world did the fire teams' management not instead fire the linesman? Or even better, if a whole bunch of the crew was non-English speaking, why not set up (temporarily at least) a new Spanish-speaking squad within the battalion? Kind of like the US and Europe did in WWII with international forces? And have that squad led by someone who is bilingual? Or, even better than that, how about if the state of OR wants that law in place, how about the state pays for English classes for the Spanish-speaking linesman??? So many ways this could have been handled that would be better than this. And regarding the law, I do believe that if you ever do require a single language for any purpose (and this is one of those good purposes), that it has to be English. There is no other logical choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 If I had to guess, setting up a special language team could be construed as segregation now adays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthSideSox72 Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 23, 2006 -> 08:50 AM) If I had to guess, setting up a special language team could be construed as segregation now adays. Not if language is job-related and critical, not to mention it is an action to comply with state law. Just like other job requirements like being able to run a mile in bunker gear. Both are the case here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCSox Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 Sadly, this doesn't surprise me. :headshake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soxfest Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 :finger Oregon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCSox Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 QUOTE(Soxfest @ Jun 25, 2006 -> 10:21 PM) :finger Oregon Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AbeFroman Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 This might be ripe for a challenge in the courts. As far as I know, there is no jurisprudence on the degree of scrutiny to be applied for lingual characteristics. Language is often a proxy for race. So maybe its subject to strict scrutiny. That would probably render this law unconsitutional. While I don't discount that having foreign language specialists is important (especially for firefighters who may need to communicate with others in a crisis), its pretty rediculous to make it a condition of advancement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthSideSox72 Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 QUOTE(AbeFroman @ Jun 26, 2006 -> 01:43 PM) This might be ripe for a challenge in the courts. As far as I know, there is no jurisprudence on the degree of scrutiny to be applied for lingual characteristics. Language is often a proxy for race. So maybe its subject to strict scrutiny. That would probably render this law unconsitutional. While I don't discount that having foreign language specialists is important (especially for firefighters who may need to communicate with others in a crisis), its pretty rediculous to make it a condition of advancement. Further, as I stated earlier, language can (I believe) be a viable condition of employment if it is job-related. In this case, it is. And if the majority of clients and/or workers are English-speaking (which they likely still are battalion-wide), then the unit can probably require basic English as a condition of employment. Downfall from that though, in terms of practicality, is that I am willing to be these units are already undermanned. If they force 20% of their force to learn English on their own, many will leave, and that could hurt their ability to function. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rex Kickass Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 These are wildfire battalions right? The bulk of their force would be doing manual labor like digging fire trenches, etc, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthSideSox72 Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jun 26, 2006 -> 04:04 PM) These are wildfire battalions right? The bulk of their force would be doing manual labor like digging fire trenches, etc, right? controlled burns, firelines, ditches, chemical stuff, some in-close firefighting too of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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