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Language at work

English-Only at Bon Secours

By July 19, 2010May 30th, 20193 Comments2 min read7,874 views
English-Only at Bon Secours

English-Only at Bon Secours

From what I read, there is a nursing shortage in the Global North. From North America to Japan and from Europe to the Gulf countries, rich societies suffer from a “care deficit,” which they fill by importing – mostly female – labor from the global South. I have published about the intersection of language, gender and global care chains before (check out our resources section on “Language, Migration and Social Justice”).

If there is a nursing shortage in a country like the USA, it’s hard to understand why a US hospital, Bon Secours Hospital in Baltimore, would choose to fire four nurses from the Philippines for no other reason than that they spoke Tagalog during lunch break. Current management theory suggests that it’s a good idea to minimize staff turnover and to try and hang-on to talent when you have it, particularly in an area with a shortage of qualified workers. So, how come four nurses get dismissed, without warning, for no other reasons than that they spoke a bit of Tagalog? Not even on the job but during break-time, and, for all I can gather from the media reports not even a Tagalog-only conversation but Tagalog-words mixed into an English conversation.

Indeed, when the four nurses filed a discrimination complaint, their lawyer argued that the lack of guidelines in the hospital’s English-Only rule made it impossible to abide by:

All it takes is just one word. That can be a greeting, a remark or even the name of a Filipino dish. Based on this rule, you could say bagoong (a fish sauce) and lose your job.

According to the lawyer, the hospital could not actually cite specific instances where or when the alleged violations of their English-Only rule had taken place. Huh?! How come an organization that claims to have “respect, justice, integrity, stewardship, innovation, compassion, quality and growth” as their core values can suspend all of these, and plain common sense to boot, in dismissing four employees without good documentation and due course? Not to mention that it’s economically irrational to dismiss health workers for no good reason when there is a shortage of them.

English-Only rules are born of ignorance and bigotry and they breed more of the same. It’s sad to see that the idea of English-Only was obviously so powerful at Bon Secours Baltimore that it suspended all other considerations.

As an afterthought, I can’t help wondering about the wisdom of throwing English-Only stones when you sit in a Bon-Secours-glasshouse …

ResearchBlogging.org Piller, Ingrid, & Takahashi, Kimie (2011). At the intersection of gender, language and transnationalism Nik Coupland. Ed. Handbook of Language and Globalisation. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 540-554

Ingrid Piller

Author Ingrid Piller

Dr Ingrid Piller, FAHA, is Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her research expertise is in bilingual education, intercultural communication, language learning, and multilingualism in the context of migration and globalization.

More posts by Ingrid Piller

Join the discussion 3 Comments

  • Loy Lising says:

    I actually found the threads and followed the blogs and discussions on this topic in some Filipino discussion sites – some in Tagalog, others in English. I have some reactions on the article and the views some Filipino nurses have on the matter.

    With regards the incident, I find it quite appalling that such practice continues and yet you hear no uproar in the US media about it. Bon Secours mission states that, (it)… remains true to its mission to bring compassionate health care to all people and Good Help to Those in Need ®. Obviously, in this incident, they forgot to extend such compassion and good help to their multilingual employees.

    What I also found very disappointing following some Filipino nurses blogging on the matter was that some have maintained the colonial view and favoured the decision by the hospital. They expressed that moving to the US also implied embracing the language at the expense of their own; that keeping Tagalog, as in this particular case, was being rude to others and non-accepting of their new home. I feel quite ashamed that they think and feel that way.

    On the other hand, I was quite proud to read those who rightly expressed in their blogs that the US, or any other country for that matter, should be accepting of the multilingual migrants, not just of their skills but their language and cultural practices and challenge them to be a truly inclusive society.

    People who often suspect that migrants who speak their L1 in the presence of others who dont understand the language must cease being so self-centred. Individuals should be allowed to maintain their freedom to express certain thoughts, emotions and opinions in the language they know best and are most comfortable in. I speak three Philippine languages: Tagalog, Cebuano and Ilonggo. Different contexts and relationships warrant only one of these three. I would certainly feel that my rights are violated if I am prohibited to use any of them in any particular context simply because I am within earshot of someone who feels uncomfortable of my choice of language.

  • What I find frustrating is that no one is even paying attention. The dismissal happened already back in April and I haven’t seen this mentioned on any of the language-related news, blogs or tweets I’m following 🙁

  • I feel so frustrated that this continues to happen. There will be a symposium on foreign nurses at Aoyama University in Tokyo on Sep 26, and if I make it, I will try to post a further report on what’s going on with foreign nurses in Japan.

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