On September 17, 2012, a California hospital had consented to forfeit a $975,000 payment in harassment and discrimination case that claimed the employer produced an aggressive work atmosphere for Filipino employees. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center took legal action against California-based Delano Regional Medical Center in 2010 in U.S. District Court. The EEOC stated that the hospital’s English-only language rule was utilized to bully and single out Filipino workers in breach of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The case contained lawsuits from almost seventy present and previous Filipino workers who stated they were mocked and intimidated by non-Filipino workers for conversing in Tagalog or other Filipino languages while being employed at Delano.
Delano’s CEO and management convened a meeting in 2006 solely for Filipino and Filipino-American workers concerning the health system’s English-only rule, as stated by an EEOC announcement on September 17th. The rule demanded employees to converse in English always at work, except throughout breaks or while working with non-English-conversing patients. For years subsequent to that moment, EEOC stated that the hospital and its rule persuaded workers to proceed as vigilantes in chastising and telling on Filipino workers who converse in Tagalog or Ilocano while working. Whereas Filipino workers were punished for supposedly breaching the language rule, the EEOC stated that Spanish- and other non-English-speaking employees on the job were not punished.
