The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) yesterday filed a class action lawsuit against the Melrose Hotel in Manhattan for discriminating against its Hispanic employees.

According to the lawsuit, presented in a hearing in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York at 9:30 in the morning, several Hispanic employees were the victims of discrimination based on their national origin. Employees were forced to work in a hostile environment in which they were forbidden from speaking Spanish even when they were on breaks.

“The law states that businesses can have a rule that requires employees speak English if there is a business reason for doing so,” declared Robert D. Rose, a lawyer from the EEOC.

“Nevertheless, when such a rule goes further than that – to the break room, the lunch room and to an employee’s personal time – then that’s a violation of the law.”

As an example, Rose recounted an instance in which an Hispanic doorman was reprimanded by his superiors for assisting a Spanish-speaking guest in his native language.

Bárbara García, the hotel’s former general manager, and Juana Vélez, the hotel’s former assistant director of housekeeping, yesterday stated that they had been the subject of constant harassment by hotel management from May 2001 to August 2002 for being Latinas.

“Many of my colleagues didn’t know how to speak English, and for this reason, I gave them instructions in Spanish,” told Vélez. “But my supervisor approached me and told me not to speak Spanish – that in this country, we speak English.”

Furthermore, Vélez alleged that the hotel’s vice-president had humiliated her on several occasions, by making fun of the accent she had when speaking English during weekly briefings.

“He would say: uno, dos, tres cuatro, bla, bla bla,” explained Vélez, a woman of Dominican origin who is married to a soldier currently serving in Iraq. The couple has three children.

Furthermore, Vélez stated that one of her supervisors threatened her upon hearing her speak Spanish with her coworkers during lunch hour.

According to García, a woman of Cuban origin who worked for the hotel for eight and a half years, she was let go just weeks after she put forth a complaint to the company’s vice-president, in which a number of the 120 employees that worked under her had claimed that they were being discriminated against solely for being Latinos.

Rose explained that around the same time, August 2002, Vélez was forced to relinquish her position and other Hispanic employees were also dismissed.

“This lawsuit involves harassment, English-only politics, dismissals and retaliation,” he added.

The Melrose Hotel, located at 140 East 63 Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, changed administration in May 2001.

As of yesterday afternoon, hotel management hadn’t made any statements relating to the lawsuit, as they don’t acknowledge the existence of the suit.

To date, five employees are a part of the lawsuit, but the EEOC expects 60 additional employees to sign onto it. With this lawsuit, the EEOC hopes that the Melrose Hotel will rectify its illegal employment practices, and that it will compensate employees for inadequate wages and damages.