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Montreal IGA that forbids employees from speaking English not reflective of chain policy: Sobeys CEO
There are always bad apples in every batch.
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When she announced she was leaving, the employee, Meaghan Moran, recorded a conversation with her two superiors in which they explained the French-only rule.
“If we permit languages other than French to be spoken, what will happen in the employees’ room?” a woman is heard asking in the recording. “We’ll have a ghetto. We’ll have a small group of Spanish, a small group of English.”
Ms. Moran is told the rules reflect the wishes of the franchise owner, Louise Ménard: “Mme. Ménard is a French-Canadian, she signs the pay cheque. What she asks is that within these walls, people speak the language of the workplace, which is the language of Quebec. It’s the law.”
Recorded the conversation? Things do not look good for Ms. Menard. She'll also be in more hot water for lying. She stated that forcing all employees to speak French within the walls of her establishment is the law. That is incorrect. The law allows employees the choice of which language to use amungst each other. The law also allows serving English speaking customers in English.
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Mr. Poulin said the president of Sobeys’ Quebec division contacted Ms. Ménard after seeing the news report about her store. Mr. Poulin did not want to specify what, if any, action would be taken against her.
She's toast.
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On the CTV web site, a commenter named Bianca said she had been fired from her cashier’s job at another of Ms. Ménard’s franchises in 2007 for speaking English to a customer. Bianca said the customer in question was her teacher at a local English high school.
If this is true, Ms. Bianca could sue Ms. Menard for violation of her civil rights as she broke no laws. Employees are indeed required to serve English speaking customers in English. As a unilingual English speaker living in Montreal, I never had any issues in this regard. 99.9% of the time I have been served in English. The 0.1 percent (isolated incident) where the cashier was not able to address me in English, she asked one of her colleagues for help. I felt guilty after that incident, as I might have inadvertently gotten her in trouble. I never saw that cashier again. If she did lose her job because of her language skills, she should not have been blamed for it, the employer should have checked to be sure she was able to communicate in English before hiring her, especially in an English part of Montreal.
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