FRAMINGHAM - A federal lawsuit that targets the Salvation Army for firing two Spanish-speaking workers here who did not learn English has touched off debate in Congress and fueled a tempest in the blogosphere.
But in Framingham, a town of 67,000 that has been transformed by immigration, the response to the controversy has been quieter and more complicated. In recent interviews, neighbors and supporters of the religious organization struggled to reconcile conflicting sympathies: for the immigrants who are widely credited with helping to revitalize the downtown area and for a respected charity that has helped countless local people.
Downtown, where the Salvation Army's yellow-brick headquarters dominates a busy intersection in a neighborhood of immigrant-owned businesses, a few residents defended the organization for requiring employees at its thrift store to speak English. But many criticized the firings, and some said they might reconsider their support for the charity.
"I feel bad, because this is a country that gives opportunity for anybody, and I know this is not the right thing to do," said Edson Marinho, the Brazilian-born owner of a meat market, Casa de Carnes, behind the Salvation Army. He said he learned English while cleaning houses and working in restaurants.
Last week, US Senator Lamar Alexander filed legislation that would protect employers who enforce English-only workplace rules. Made in the midst of an election-year furor over immigration, the Tennessee Republican's proposal was spurred by the discrimination lawsuit against the Framingham thrift store, filed in federal court in Boston in March by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The Salvation Army decided to enforce its language policy in 2004 and had directed all employees to learn basic English, according to the suit. The EEOC complaint on behalf of Dolores Escorbor and Maria del Carmen Perdomo says their firings in December 2005 were unlawful because there was no legitimate business reason for them to be required to speak English on the job.
Joseph Mastone, a car wash owner from Dedham who bought several novels at the thrift store last week, said he admired the charity's good works but was bothered by the strict language policy because his wife, an immigrant from Vietnam, is still learning English 15 years after coming to this country.
"It's nice to ask people to study English, but these people are [working long hours] to make a living," said Mastone, who, like most of those interviewed, learned of the lawsuit from a reporter.
Inside the Framingham store, where sweaters grouped by color hang in blocks of green, yellow, and lavender, workers sorting merchandise behind a thin-walled partition with swinging red doors could be heard speaking a mixture of Spanish and English.
Some customers said they understood the language requirement. Pausing on the store's front steps, Adriana Solorzano said she thought it would be helpful for the store to employ Spanish speakers, given the number of its customers who speak the language. But she also said the policy is not unreasonable.
Solorzano immigrated to the United States from Venezuela five years ago and now works as a Spanish teacher for adults and corporations.
"You're in America, and you have to adapt to this country," she said in English.
Escorbor, a native of the Dominican Republic, and Perdomo, from El Salvador, began working at the store in 1999 and communicated mostly in Spanish. In 2004, according to the Salvation Army's response to the lawsuit, employees "were told . . . to obtain at least a working knowledge of spoken English," and were given more than a year to demonstrate progress. But the women did not learn English and continued to speak Spanish at work, according to the charity.
The problem with the firings, according to the employment commission's complaint, is that the women worked behind the scenes sorting clothes, and, therefore "learning English . . . was unrelated to the job they had been performing."
The Salvation Army denies that the women worked only as clothes sorters. Charity officials declined to speak to a reporter because the lawsuit is pending, but a statement said: "The Salvation Army continues to believe that there is no legal basis for the complaint filed by the EEOC . . . and we vigorously dispute any suggestion that we have violated the law."
The lawsuit raised the ire of Alexander, who first tried to attach an amendment to a funding bill to block such suits. The measure provoked strong opposition from Hispanic members of Congress, who called it dangerous and discriminatory. Alexander then filed it separately, as the Protecting English in the Workplace Act, which will be referred to a committee for study.
"Our greatest accomplishment as a country has been uniting our magnificent diversity, and one way we have done that is by all speaking a common language, English," Alexander said in a statement.
The dispute captured the attention of conservative bloggers and illegal immigration foes, who have tried to rally support for the legislation. "Tell Congress to rein in this ROGUE agency and PROTECT English as the common, unifying language of our nation!" urged the website for a nonprofit group called ProEnglish that aims to make English the official language of the United States.
David Grinberg, a spokesman for the EEOC, said federal law allows English-only rules when there is a "business reason" for them to exist, such as employees interacting with customers or using dangerous equipment. He said a tiny number of the allegations brought to the agency concern such rules - 125 out of about 75,000 last year - and even fewer result in lawsuits. The commission filed two such suits this year, he said.
"Most employers do the right thing," he said.
Practices that have led to lawsuits have included bans on employees speaking other languages on breaks, on personal phone calls, and on the street outside the workplace, he said.
The lawsuit against the Salvation Army seeks back pay for the two workers and compensation for other losses, including health insurance, and for emotional suffering. Attempts to reach Escorbor and Perdomo were unsuccessful.
Outside the
"This is the United States, and English should be the first language," she said.
