foreigner forced to speak native language - is it legal?

Nicky_77

Hi Guys, my friend is Spanish national working for a big multinational organisation. He was not required to speak Spanish for the position he was hired, the CV indicated that he did not use the language for last 10 year as he worked in Ireland with English language requirements, nationality was not mentioned (it can be figured out from education and previous experience in Madrid). The company forced him to use Spanish at work, i.e working on Spanish documentation despite it is not part of his role. Is this legal? Can the company force foreigner to speak his native language in that case?

BuffyBot

"forced"?

Most employment contracts will have an "any other duties" style clause allowing the company to assign tasks outside the norm to employees.

Unless it was done at gunpoint, I'm not sure how you figure it would be illegal?

gral6

..and what the problem at all ? He couldnt open his mouth ?

MagicMarker

OP, did your Spanish friend have a problem with being given pieces of paper with Spanish words on them?

peasant

gral6 wrote: »

..and what the problem at all ? He couldnt open his mouth ?

MagicMarker wrote: »

OP, did your Spanish friend have a problem with being given pieces of paper with Spanish words on them?

I'm a foreigner myself and I quite voluntarily offer my "services" ...but always with the caveat that I can only translate stuff that I know about in BOTH languages.

I had to sell a product once and I learned all about it here in Ireland ...lots of new words and technical terms, all in English of course.

Then I went to do a presentation about it in my native language only to realise that 50% of the text was English ...simply because I never had been exposed to the terms in my own language and just did not know them.

Being a foreigner doesn't qualify you as a translator
(And the longer you have been away, the more difficult it gets)


If I worked in Microsoft for example, I could no more translate the latest Windows interface into my native language than a monkey brought in from Dublin zoo ...the last time I was exposed to a Windows interface in my own language was Windows 3.1 (it has changed quite a bit since then)

Mr. Loverman

I always find these situations a little weird.

Your friend has been given the chance to show he is more useful than his job title, yet for some reason he wants to turn this positive into a negative by being difficult.

My advice to your friend is to do the bits of Spanish work here and there so the company see him as a valuable asset. Complaining will just make him seem difficult and may make his manager dislike him.

peasant

It's a bit more tricky than that, IMO.

Say for example he works in an administrative role (purchasing, accounts, etc) ...of course he should write the odd e-mail in Spanish to customers/suppliers to help sort out the odd outstanding payment/delivery more quickly.

But what about highly detailed and complicated technical documentation / legal texts that he knows nothing about? By obliging to translate those he could get himself (and the company) into very deep water very quickly.
The company needs to hire a specialist for those kind of things.

Mr. Loverman

Well I am assuming if he was asked to work on "highly detailed and complicated technical documentation / legal texts that he knows nothing about" he would mention in an e-mail he has never done this before and it's not his speciality, and his manager would say of course we understand... in other words, it'd be a normal cover your arse situation.

But I agree in general, obviously he should not be doing this if it is something critical which requires specific technical or legal training and could result in someone dying or something... but I am assuming this is probably not the case.

Wishbone Ash

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Well I am assuming if he was asked to work on "highly detailed and complicated technical documentation / legal texts that he knows nothing about" he would mention in an e-mail he has never done this before and it's not his speciality, and his manager would say of course we understand... in other words, it'd be a normal cover your arse situation

+1

My boss occasionally asks me to do tasks which I don't feel entirely competent at. I will express my concerns but will agree to give it a go and look forward to learning from the experience. If it doesn't work out as planned at least she will be aware of my initial concerns.