Priscilla Garcia Maricela Buitrago United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Afl-Cio v. Spun Steak Company, a California Corporation

We are called upon to decide whether an employer violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in requiring its bilingual workers to speak only English while working on the job.

I

Spun Steak Company (“Spun Steak”) is a California corporation that produces poultry and meat products in South San Francisco for wholesale distribution. Spun Steak employs thirty-three .workers, twenty-four of whom are Spanish-speaking. Virtually all of the Spanish-speaking employees are Hispanic. While two employees speak no English, the others have varying degrees of proficiency in English. Spun Steak has never required job applicants to speak or to understand English as a condition of employment.

Approximately two-thirds of Spun Steak’s employees are production line workers or otherwise involved in the production process. Appellees Garcia and Buitrago are production line workers; they stand before a conveyor belt, remove poultry or other meat products from the belt and place the product into cases or trays for resale. Their work is done individually. Both Garcia and Buitrago are fully bilingual, speaking both English and Spanish.

Appellee Local 115, United Food and Commercial Workers…

dissenting in part:

I agree with most of the majority’s carefully crafted opinion. I dissent, however, from the majority’s rejection of the EEOC guidelines. The guidelines provide that an employee establishes a prima facie case in a disparate impact claim by proving the existence of an English-only policy, thereby shifting the burden to the employer to show a business necessity for the rule. See 29 C.F.R. § 1606.7 (b) (1991) (“An employer may have a rule requiring that employees speak only in English at certain times where the employer can show that the rule is justified by business necessity.”). I would defer to the Commission’s expertise in construing the Act, by virtue of which it concluded that English-only rules may “create an atmosphere of inferiority, isolation and intimidation based on national origin which could result in a discriminatory working environment.” Id. § 1606.7(a).

As the majority indicates, proof of such an effect of English-only rules requires analysis of subjective factors. It is hard to envision how the burden of proving such an effect would be met other than by conclusory self-serving statements of the Spanish-speaking employees or possibly by expert…

998 F.2d 1480 62 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 525 , 62 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 42,456 , 62 USLW 2055 Priscilla GARCIA; Maricela Buitrago; United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. SPUN STEAK COMPANY, a California corporation, Defendant-Appellant. No. 91-16733. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted Nov. 3, 1992. Decided July 16, 1993. James A. Carter, Hendrickson, Higbie & Carter, San Francisco, CA, for defendant-appellant. Edward M. Chen, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California, San Francisco, CA, for plaintiffs-appellees. Jennifer S. Goldstein, E.E.O.C., Washington, DC, for amicus. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Before: BOOCHEVER, NOONAN and O'SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judges. O'SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge: 1 We are called upon to decide whether an employer violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in requiring its bilingual workers to speak only English while working on the job. 2 * Spun Steak Company ("Spun Steak") is a California corporation that produces poultry and meat products in South San Francisco for wholesale…