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Anna: Welcome to our podcast “Understanding the law”. I’m Anna Gunther and today we have an expert in the law of equal opportunities, Mr Jason Girgis from the firm of Girgis and Cohen. Welcome, Mr Girgis.

Jason: Thank you, Anna. Please call me Jason.

Anna: OK, Jason. Thank you. So, it’s hard to believe that we are still talking about equal rights and opportunities in this day and age, but here we are.

Jason: Yes, equal treatment is still an issue today, but most governments in Europe, North America and many other places, do have laws in place to protect people from discrimination of all sorts.

Anna: What kinds of cases are you seeing? I know that treatment of men and women in the workplace is not always equal, in terms of pay or opportunities to move up within the company.

Jason: Oh, yes. That’s very true, and that is an important issue. In our firm, we used to deal with many cases claiming gender discrimination, but today we are seeing more cases arising from other kinds of bias, and that could mean discrimination based on religion, ethnic origin, language, or even all those factors together.

Anna: Really? Even language? That’s surprising.

Jason: Oh yes, because if you think about it, language is often connected to our ethnic origins. We typically speak the language of the country we are from, and even if we learn other languages, we may still have an accent that tells others where we’re from.

Anna: Yes, that’s true. I’ve been speaking Spanish for years, but I know I do it with an English accent. But in what ways are people discriminated against because of the language they speak? Why would that be an issue?

Jason: Well, this becomes an issue in employment cases. People didn’t use to move as frequently as they do now. Think about the European Union. There are more than two dozen countries in the European Union, and there are 24 official languages, and actually, even more languages are spoken in the EU. So, if someone is legally entitled to work in one country of the EU, they are allowed to work in any of the member countries. And, they take their language with them.

Anna: That makes sense, but they would probably speak the language of the country they want to work in, right? Why would anyone want to work in a country where they couldn’t speak the language?

Jason: That’s true, but if you think of it from the view of protecting jobs for people of that country, employers may try to discriminate against people who aren’t native speakers of that language, even if they can use the language with a high degree of proficiency.

Anna: I understand. So it isn’t always a question of how well a person can use the language.

Jason: Exactly. It’s often a bias against people who are migrating to the country from other parts of the EU. This isn’t the main area of our firm’s work, but it’s a good example of how discrimination can take different forms.

Anna: Thank you, Jason. That’s a very important point.