Fire Crew Bosses Who Can't Speak Spanish Can Lose Jobs

[Tchocky]

This is from summer 2006
In the middle of a forest fire emergency.
In which firefighters were desperately needed.
To save lives and property.
Most of the workforce were Hispanic, and some of the team bosses couldn't communicate with them. In a standard situation English should be a requirement, or at least a hiring preference.
But this was an emergency. Firefighters' lives would be put at even more risk if they couldn't communicate. The two options are 1) The bosses have to speak English and Spanish, and 2) the employees have to speak English.

When 85% of your workforce in an emergency situation are Spanish speakers, don't get rid of them all. Make changes at the top until the crisis has passed.
Obviously English is the dominant language of America, but if most of the people who show up to help speak Spanish, deal with it.

[Konovalov]

Tchocky comes to the rescue with a little bit of context and common sense.

[August]

Yeah until a team boss whose main qualification is that he speaks spanish gets a team killed because he lacks the experience of the non spanish speaker he replaced...

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Konovalov

Tchocky comes to the rescue with a little bit of context and common sense.

Hardly. He forgot to factor in that they hired the stupid Illegal aliens because they can pay them half of what they can for an American firefighter. A little catch 22 going on here.

-S

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Hardly. He forgot to factor in that they hired the stupid Illegal aliens because they can pay them half of what they can for an American firefighter. A little catch 22 going on here.

Yeah, because there are no US citizens who's first language is Spanish.
Why are you reading "Hispanic" as "illegal"?

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

Yeah, because there are no US citizens who's first language is Spanish.
Why are you reading "Hispanic" as "illegal"?

Because we do not allow immigration from Mexico at all - thats your first clue. Your second clue is that they can't speak English. Do I need to spell it out for you?

-S

[TteFAboB]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

This is from summer 2006

Any date after 2003 is irrelevant to the fact that since that year fire crew bosses who can't speak spanish can lose jobs. In 2006, 2008 or 2020.

In the middle of a forest fire emergency.
In which firefighters were desperately needed.
To save lives and property.

Which means how important it is to have a capable force. By relying on a single bilingual boss, an emergency inside the emergency will break communications and return you to ground zero.

Most of the workforce were Hispanic, and some of the team bosses couldn't communicate with them. In a standard situation English should be a requirement, or at least a hiring preference.
But this was an emergency.

The standard situation of a firefighter is an emergency situation. Your distinction does not exist. That's why firefighters exist, what they combat. A firefighter does not answer a small fire in a small garbage bin that will be put out with a glass of water, that is not an emergency. A firefighter answers the garbage bin fire that was never put out and thus spreaded to the entire house and the surrounding forest, that's an emergency.

Firefighters' lives would be put at even more risk if they couldn't communicate. The two options are 1) The bosses have to speak English and Spanish, and 2) the employees have to speak English.

The article states that squad bosses do not have to speak Spanish. Does that mean that the lives of the squads were or are being put at risk, since an English squad won't be able to directly communicate with a Spanish squad? The third option is to give a course or request that bosses learn Spanish. The fourth option is to attach a junion bilingual officer to the crew boss.

When 85% of your workforce in an emergency situation are Spanish speakers, don't get rid of them all. Make changes at the top until the crisis has passed.
Obviously English is the dominant language of America, but if most of the people who show up to help speak Spanish, deal with it.

Lay off the experienced chiefs to promoted less experienced officers? Exactly the absurdly effective course of action one should take in an emergency. However, this emergencial scenario is false as far as the rule is concerned: the article says that the law was created in 2003, and only "now", that is, in 2006, bosses were being laid out. Three years is quite a long time to wait before taking action in an emergency. Why not lay them off immediately after the law was passed in 2003? Or 2004? Or 2005? If the decision to lay off the bosses was emergencial it would've taken less than three years for it to be done. The excuse is that the ranks started being ever more filled by non-english speaking Hispanics. Since Oregon Forest Dep. knew and followed the trend, this was no emergency, but a deliberate and controlled mismanagement of an executive "wildfire".

What happened here is that instead of teaching or requesting that the bosses learn Spanish, Oregon passed a law to be able to demote the bosses once the reliance Hispanic contractors became overwhelming. It was the easiest course of action, not the best.