By Rodney Jaleco, ABS-CBN North America Bureau
Reporting from Fairfax, VA
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The Maryland Department of Labor reversed an order that withheld unemployment benefits from one of three Filipina nurses who were fired from a Baltimore hospital for speaking Tagalog.
Administrative judge Stuart Breslow sided with the nurses, when he said in his ruling that no patient was ever put in danger when they spoke Tagalog during their break. Breslow said Filipina nurse Corina Yap should be eligible to receive jobless benefits. The Labor Departnment earlier said Yap could not receive unemployment benefits because she was fired for grave misconduct.
Four Filipino employees of the Bon Secours Hospital were fired in April, for allegedly violating the hospital’s English-only policy while on duty at the emergency room.
Nurses Anna Rosales, Hachelle Natano, Yap and employee Jazziel Granada however claim they spoke Tagalog only during breaks. Breslow also said any lapses on the part of the nurses were accidental.
The nurses’ legal counsel Arnedo Valero of the nonprofit Migrant Heritage Commission said the administrative court’s ruling can boost the nurses’ discrimination complaint filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Valero said the nurses are considering suing Bon Secours for damages.
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@alvin maldonado
A few corrections/details:
Dialect in Iloilo City is “Hiligaynon”, not Tagalog.
Dialect in Cebu is “Cebuanl” aka “Bisaya”, not Tagalog.
“Tagalog” is the day-to-day conversational dialect in most provinces in north to southern Luzon. The formal/textbook languange of the Philippines is “Pilipino”. Remember, that’s with a “P”, not “F”.
An employer looking for nurturing skills will look beyond language, but among immigrants for whom English is second language, Filipinos speak some of the best English (despite imperfect pronunciation), so language is not an issue. It is impolite – not illegal- to speak one’s own language in front of others. Many immigrants, not just Filipinos do it. Thus, you may not like them for doing it but you may not fire them if they speak their language during their break..
Tagolog is the language of the Philippines, however there are different dialects in every town, every Barrio, every province and every city. A Manila person does not understand a person’s Tagolog from Iloilo City. I heard from a Cavite Filipino she does not understand the tagolg of a person from Cebu.There are 7,000 islands in this country. Need I say more. You have to speak english in the USA. The lawyers at work here will win a case for 4 nuses but the Filipino nurses in the future will find its hard to get work for Filipino Nurses. Who gets screwed in the end.
There are 4 issues here
1: Professionalism. As nurses we are expected to act as professional which means following the policy, protocols and procedures of our chosen workplace. Non adherence to such can have corresponding sanctions. If they were “PROVEN” after due process to violate an agreed upon policy then the hospital has every right to give appropriate punishment
2: Due process. If an error or break in the rule is committed a due process must be given. Denial of such is an insult to basic human rights! Even people who commit atrocious crimes are given due process. If they were denied of such then the hospital is liable!
3. Freedom of speech vs. Courtesy. Yes USA is a democratic country and most if not all started as immigrant (only native American Indians are real American descents). So no race has the right to oppress one nationality but we have to remember freedom is not absolute! There are limitations to what one can do. If your freedom to talk in your native tongue can and suppress the freedom, rights and cause harm to others then it must be curtailed. Courtesy tells us that even if there are no written rules/policy about it, we must always abide by common basic social conduct regardless race, class, creed or nationality. Speaking in Tagalog in front of non-Tagalog speaking people is impolite but is it illegal? But as professional one is expected to practice respect to others and common courtesy.
4. Cultural sensitivity. When you live or work in foreign lands you have to adapt and follow its customs. You cannot impose yours! So if that country says that its is rude to speak in your native tongue then don’t push it! Is such practice culturally unacceptable in America? I don’t think so! It boils down to how it was used and delivered
@Wayne… if that is the case then the court will really side with them
@Ernesto Mariano…all hospital have different policy. Its their right! You cannot bring what is practiced in NY to Bon Secours Hospital.
@Cienna…your missing the point!
@Ray…that is very polite and considerate of you!
@Jarevalo…i agree
@Malcolm…do not generalized… otherwise you are also discriminating!
@Anita Cruz…what the???… ur point is????
@Michael…majority of people in Florida are HIspanic so that is not a surprise and not applicable to Virginia!
@Alex… I have the same question too?
@Vertito…The judicial system will determine whose right
@ Brianna Cruz…. before you talk about rules of conduct, social ethics, rudeness you might want to reflect your choice of words and look at the dictionary for the meaning of hypocrite?
Many of you do not know the whole story. The nurses were never given any formal or informal warnings for speaking in Tagalog. They were simply fired on the spot. The hospital did not even have any documentation of specific incidents where the nurses spoke Tagalog. This is where the lawsuit stems from.
Why not they apply same policy in this big state of New York? Lots of residents and employees here are Hispanic . It is even to the advantage
of the employee if he/she is bilingual. In fact there are even written instructions on walls and on printed media in english with Spanish translations. So, what is wrong with Tagalog? Are these so called English speaking humans worthy of respect if they are annoyed by simple human
expression of culture?!
Well…they are professional nurses with Bachelor’s degree, they should know the rules of conduct and social ethics . What they did is absolutely absolutely rude. This is actually a warning to all Filipino nurses to STOP this rude behaviour. These nurses should understand that it is CULTURALLY rude here in America to speak someone’s native language if someone is around or in a hearing distance. So please, just take your punishment…shut up and move on. You are an embarrasment to your motherland!
The judge has ruled: “Administrative judge Stuart Breslow sided with the nurses, when he said in his ruling that no patient was ever put in danger when they spoke Tagalog during their break”.
If a tourist has been injured and this hospital happened to be the nearest one, he’s not welcome there because he’s able to express more his pains in his own native language. That hospital needs to add a caption after their name : Speak in English only.
Seriously America, and you wonder why the rest of the world thinks you’re nasty, uneducated, racist pricks.
Rules are rules. There is no discrimination if they were told the rules at the time of accepting employment. I speak Ilocano and Tagalog, but when anywhere there is at least 1 person who wouldn’t understand..including our children.. we speak only English no matter how many rude Filipinos are around!
As long as there is NO danger on the life of the patient, I think it is just fine to speak in our native tongue, HOWEVER, out of delicadeza for non-tagalog speaking people around , I would suggest that ENGLSH still be spoken .
my wife is filipina and I am french west indian but we both speak english at work. the discrimination was on the part of the nurses. they deserved to be fired if they spoke tagalog anywhere at work knowing what the regulations were. I was in a unit (navy) and most of the guys were pinoys. the supervisor made it clear that english was the sole spoken language as a professional courtesy to the 2 of us who spoke no tagalog. his successor would speak tagalog all day and it was extremely uncomfortable and when i said something they started having meetings seperately in the supervisors quarters… what does that tell you?? they do not deserve to draw my tax dollars (unemployment) after doing something that would obviously offend most americans!!!
what exactly was the hosp policy of speak english only? is that considering the nurses lounge having meal breaks or smoking breaks? in my point of view, when nurses around the patients bedside and nurses stations w/ other health employees- its a must they have to talk in english, not only them -all of those people too, so no speculation that we are selling each other in front of each other if we talk to our own dialects. coz really sometimes its not good if we hear someone else talking in their dialects in front of us, so same thing must count-2 ways.in the phils of course i talk tagalog, not there’s lots of Ilocana, visayan student nurses when i went for my nursing course-during my duty as a student in the clinic i was a freshman and there was a JR student who was cocky and asking my classmate who i was in their ilocana dialect,tho i dont understand what she really said that momenet but i sensed what she was saying and i would like to pull her hair and fight w/ her-coz of her intimidation while on duty in that hosp clinic and saying a lot of things towards me. u know what i did after my tour of duty. i gathered all my thoughts and how to attack her as a student nurse. i went to her dorm to confront her, she wasnt there and she was on duty, so i went to that clinic and almost fought w/ her but the other Jr students tried to separate us. after her duty , she confronted me in my dorm and slap me and i grabbed her as we fell on the floor and pulled each other’s hair, kicking and hitting each other,and she passed out and my classmate at the room put her in the lower bunkbed and sprinkled water on her face. and i told her dont u ever talk to me like that even in ur own filipino dialect ilocano! like same thing can happened here in america talking filipino in front of others who dont speak or understand, coz they can sense it too-specially if u really are saying something against that person- so its not nice, its rude,its nasty. so we filipino workers must refrain from talking in our own tagalog language in front of foreigners-americans, hispanics,italians,germans, chinese etc- so there will be a pleasant working ambience. peace to all please!!
Yes again this is an issue of racial discrimination. We live in a free country and as long as you do not harm anyone there is no way that a hospital can fire you. I live in miami with lots of spanish speaking nurses and speaking for myself, I am not offended with this. To the 4 filipino nurses, I support you. Fight for your right. Give this hospital their own dose of medications. Sue and collect for damages. They deserved this and so they know that we have our legal rights.
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One can definitely feel uncomfortable hearing other people speak their native tongue. Case example is whenever I am having pedicure on this Nails services owned by Vietnamese. They might not be talking about me. ( how would I know). But it is kinda rude.
My wife and I are both Physical Therapist and used to work on the same place. Whenever, there are other people who cannot understand Tagalog, we do our best to refrain from speaking Tagalog.
So the question is. Where they talking in Tagalog with other people ( who cannot understand) around?
It’s only right for the four nurses to sue and claim damages to Bon Secours Hospital and learn a lesson for being prejudice and bias to their workers. Also discrimination can be expressed in different forms like this hospital has done to our Filipino nurses.