dangers of employees who dont speak english

babybundy

anyone here agree with me that a person should not be employed on sites if they dont speak english i'm looking for you opinions on this subject

aidan_walsh

By sites, you mean building sites?

babybundy

aidan_walsh wrote:

By sites, you mean building sites?

ya

Karl Hungus

I don't see how this relates solely to building sites, because a lack of communacation that could exist between employer, empoyee and customer, if the employee doesn't speak the language, well that's problematic for any business.

babybundy

ya i agree when it comes to customer service and general coms. but its safty on sites is wat i want to highlight

testicle

If they have a Safepass, there is no problem

babybundy

testicle wrote:

If they have a Safepass, there is no problem

not if they can speak english how can you tell one to move in an emergence or as i've seen i told one to grab a rope cause one of or lads was struggling but because he didn't speak english he kept walking away and the other fella nearly got dragged the open 3 STORIES UP

Heinrich

A portugese building worker who only speaks portugese has no safety issues on a Swiss building site because a good number of the building workforce are from Portugal.

I suppose the same applies to the Polish building workers...

Odour of racism?

babybundy

i wouldn't say racism but wat are you saying we should hire more polls and less irish i was working on the county hall in cork and there was days where our crew would be the only irish on site and the same on a few others to

Litcagral

Under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005

Section 12 Part 1:


An employee shall, while at work -

(h) report to his or her employer or to any other appropriate
person, as soon as practicable—
(i) any work being carried on, or likely to be carried on,
in a manner which may endanger the safety, health
or welfare at work of the employee or that of any
other person,
(ii) any defect in the place of work, the systems of work,
any article or substance which might endanger the
safety, health or welfare at work of the employee or
that of any other person, or
(iii) any contravention of the relevant statutory provisions
which may endanger the safety, health and welfare
at work of the employee or that of any other person.


In a potentially dangerous area such as on a construction site, this could prove quite difficult if a employee did not speak English and if there was no other employee available to translate.

babybundy

thank you

lostexpectation

and did the firm building the county hall specifically employ an agency to get in cheap foreigns workers i wonder?

babybundy

dunno but there was something like 14 different nationalities

Carb

Where I work (Meat processing factory), we have huge seasonal requirements for labour eg. we double our workforce at Christmas. Most of these are flown in from Eastern Europe. We have a minimum english requirement. I say its probably partly to do with been able to communicate instructions, and partly down to safety, although most warning notices etc are now in multiple languages.

babybundy

ok i working in a slaughter house too so wat if a bull or cow got out of the box and you shout to get out of the area bat they dont look or react cause they dont speak english if he gets killed by a bull(god forbid) is he spoke minimum english good enough excuse as to why he wasn't warned

Carb

babybundy wrote:

ok i working in a slaughter house too so wat if a bull or cow got out of the box and you shout to get out of the area bat they dont look or react cause they dont speak english if he gets killed by a bull(god forbid) is he spoke minimum english good enough excuse as to why he wasn't warned

We deal with turkies, so there's unlikely to be any deaths due to stampedes:D

I've been in slaughter houses, and the scenario you outline above is very unlikely to occur, mainly due the setup these place have to avoid stalf having to move cattle about. ie farmer reverses up the yard, cattle are put into enclosure, and they can be herded along a shoot from outside the enclosure until they meet their maker.

I did say that we had a minimum requirement in order to follow instructions. I would imagine shouting get out of the area could be described as an instruction. I would also assume that non-nationals like every other irish worker do not go to work every day with the intention of getting killed. Personal responsibility comes into it. You refer to one of your lads almost getting dragged out a window. Who put him in that position. If he had got killed, its not the non-national that would have been blamed. Maybe the non-national wasn't listening to you because he wasn't working for/with you.

BTW. If it was an emergency, why didn't you grab the rope yourself instead of telling somebody else to do it.

babybundy

there was no need , the one cloesest just shot it , it had gotten out from the box somehow it got under the gate

babybundy

Carb wrote:

You refer to one of your lads almost getting dragged out a window. Who put him in that position. If he had got killed, its not the non-national that would have been blamed. Maybe the non-national wasn't listening to you because he wasn't working for/with you.

QUOTE]
he was subcontracted to us and we had miss judged the weight i'm not saying he is to blame but he was the closest untill a scaffolder ran over a grabbed on

Enii

Maybe it was not the lack of english but the lack of cop on that he did not grap the rope, maybe it was an isolated incident and not a Health and Safety issue in relation limited amount of english. Like most non-english people would understand someone shouting "Hey" and pointing to the rope to be grabbed on to.

elivsvonchiaing

In a hazardous work environment I seriously think it just as dangerous for workers not to be able to read English as speak it.

Universal hazard signs have to be fetched from storage; a scribbled note in English may all there is to warn of a hazard until the sign arrives...

I know of some non-europeans here that can read and write English well but can only understand a little spoken, speak a little - and would walk around the chemical spill (with a hasty note in English) while some of their Irish co-workers will wonder why their shoes are melting :rolleyes:

vimak

btw, totally offtopic but what's wrong with "working class" irish when they don't even want to understand if someone speaks english with an accent to them? I've noticed this problem with taxi drivers, salespersons and my land lord for example. On the other hand, more educated people e.g. who have interviewed me / who I work with seem to understand english even if it's spoken little bit different than Irish people do. I've also talked to people from UK and Canada, they didn't have a problem understanding even when I was little drunk

Are they just racist & afraid they'll lose their lower end jobs to foreigners?

nesf

Tbh that happens when you just happen to be from a different part of the country. The amount of times that Dub taxi drivers didn't understand my (quite delectable) accent is simply mind-boggling!

lostexpectation

vimak wrote:

btw, Are they just racist & afraid they'll lose their lower end jobs to foreigners?

its inbred distaine to someone different, yes racism

babybundy

vimak wrote:

Are they just racist & afraid they'll lose their lower end jobs to foreigners?

the only reasons we are losing our lower end jobs is because foreigners are allowing themselves to be taking for a ride now i'm not blaming it 100% on the people looking for work i blame the cheap skate business owners more than the employees but every thing contribeuits to the problem

Carb

babybundy wrote:

the only reasons we are losing our lower end jobs is because foreigners are allowing themselves to be taking for a ride now i'm not blaming it 100% on the people looking for work i blame the cheap skate business owners more than the employees but every thing contribeuits to the problem

More to do with Irish people not wanting to do them. Where I work, at Christmas we run two twelve hour shifts, seven days a week, for three and half weeks. There are people working here for over twenty years and they say that years ago, when 50 jobs use to come up for the Christmas rush, there would be up to 400 people lined up to apply, now when we need over 200 people, we'd be luck to get 10 Irish people applying.

Litcagral

babybundy wrote:

the only reasons we are losing our lower end jobs is because foreigners are allowing themselves to be taking for a ride now i'm not blaming it 100% on the people looking for work i blame the cheap skate business owners more than the employees but every thing contribeuits to the problem

Up to fairly recently an employer had to show that he was actively trying to recruit in Ireland for three months before he was granted permits for foreign employees.