South Florida Personal Injury Blog

National origin discrimination is against the law. Fort Lauderdale injury attorney Andrew Alitowski has found that this is an area in which few people are familiar with what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behavior, especially in the workplace. Discrimination on the basis of national origin can result in lower wages and serious harassment or discomfort at the workplace for those affected.

Ethnic slurs are never appropriate. A worker’s ancestry or his own national origin has no impact on his ability to perform the job. Broward personal injury lawyer Alitowski says that many people have grown accustomed to making jokes about those whose backgrounds differ from their own. They may actually believe that people who hail from other places are different than they are, or that they are somehow less valuable. Expressing those viewpoints in the workplace is undesirable and undermines people who do not share the speaker’s ethnicity or national origin.

The United States has a rich tradition of immigration; wave after wave of immigrants have come to this nation to work hard, raise their families, and live the American dream. Congress has enacted legislation to prevent new immigrants and their children from facing unnecessary hurdles. For example, a company cannot require that job applicants be fluent in English unless that skill is necessary to perform the job. For example, a plumber might need to be proficient in English in order to communicate with customers – but he may not need to be fluent to fix the pipes and figure the appropriate charges. A business also cannot institute “English only” rules unless it is actually necessary. If two secretaries like to speak their native language of Spanish over lunch, it does not affect their job performance in a predominantly English-speaking office. However, if the secretaries make notes in files, or share information that is communicated between others in the office who do not speak Spanish, the office may require that those functions be performed in English to promote efficiency. An employer also may not discriminate against a worker or job applicant due to her accent unless it imposes very serious hurdles. A person who speaks English well may perform her sales job perfectly well despite the fact that it is her second language; the employer might only have reason to intervene if customers legitimately cannot understand her accent, thereby seriously reducing sales. A worker should never have to withstand unwelcome jokes or disparaging remarks about his background.