I speak on my coworkers' behalf on the matter that is happening at my workplace.
The majority of my coworkers are Spanish-speaking people. We work together nicely on every shift. I'm there 6 days a week and I always hear someone spoke Spanish whenever I came in (morning or evening shift.) I should also mentioned that we also have people who only spoke English, me included. Of course we don't understand Spanish at all, but we always understand the English of other coworkers who spoke it. They respond to us with English all the time, even say hi or goodbye in English. We have a good relationship with these people, they even invite us to hang out with them from time to time.
Until we have a new higher-boss. I have 2 bosses, and this person is their bosses. My 2 bosses spoke Spanish with each other, I think they come from the same place. And them speaking Spanish makes higher-boss unhappy. And then one-day, HR comes in and tells us that we cannot speak any foreign language because that exclude other people. HR justified this by saying that this is a part of the company's policy.
I will repeat this information also. Everyone at work IS FINE with these people speaking Spanish. Some people are just straight up don't care. My workplace is in Portland Oregon.
I have questions. Was it wrong for these people to speak Spanish at work? to people who understand Spanish? Is this racist? Or can be considered racist. And what can we do for next step to resolve this issue.