There are many personal stories I can relate to but
I chose to tell one I have witnessed. Couple weeks ago my friend got hurt at
work therefore had to fill some LNI paperwork. My friend's primary language is
Spanish but is becoming more fluent in English. When she called to talk to the
HR office about her case, the lady told her she had a very strong accent and
she could not understand her therefore she had to call back later because she
had to find an interpreter. My friend felt offended by her words. When she
tried to call back to talk to the lady, her calls were being ignored, she did
not get any calls back neither. Last week, I offered to help her so we went
over to the HR office, the lady was talking to us like we did not understand
English, her tone was slow. She told my friend, to write what had happened to
see if they consider to pay for her injuries. I don't quite understand what and
how it works when you get hurt at work nor what are your rights, but I know I
will informed myself so my friend gets the help she deserves.
This experience is making me feel very marginalized
in some way and my friend felt discriminated because of her accent. It raised
many questions of why would this people treat us like that, instead of helping
us understand the process of what happens when an employee gets hurt at the
job? I also asked myself does this happen to everybody or is there some type of
discrimination going on towards my friend? There can be many assumptions but
deep inside of me, I felt the drive to help my friend until she gets what she
deserves. It is unfortunate cases like these happen day in and day out, when
will it stop? We don't know. I know something which I believe is true: One
person at a time.
Thank you for sharing this post. It is unfortunate that your friend had to experience a form of discrimination due to her accent. It was unfair of HR to assume because she had an accent she did not understand English and needed an interpreter. I thought it was also upsetting that they ignored her calls. Thankfully she has a friend like you to be supportive. Sharing stories like these I think will help inform people of how discrimination is still occurring in order to enforce changes.
ReplyDeletePatricia,
ReplyDeleteI can see how you and your friend felt like she was being marginalized. The HR person acted as if your friend wasn't a priority because of her accent and was very ignorant in her assumptions that she needed an interpreter to understand the situation. It is also possible that she was violating your friends rights as there is likely a time period that a workers compensation claim must be filed in order to be valid. I think it is important for everyone to know their rights when it comes to these kinds of things. A friend of mine is going through something similar right now. She is a nurse whose job it was to visit clients in their homes to administer their medications. On an icy night, a particular client's sidewalk was slippery. She fell and when she put her hand down to catch herself, she crushed one of the knuckles on her ring finger. They gave her the run around and have tried to deny paying her. She believes part of the issue is discrimination because she has recently come out as a lesbian. Someone's race or sexual status should have nothing to do with their rights as an employee. We should all be guaranteed the same protection under the law. Your friend is very lucky to have you help her in this situation. It is a shame that it is necessary.
This is Jaime Price making this post. It keeps telling me that I do not own my own wordpress identity so I had to use an OpenID which listed me as anonymous. Sorry about that.