What is business necessity?
“Business necessity” is when there is an overriding legitimate business purpose to speak English. For example,”business necessity” has been found when surgery is being performed, or when a salesperson is waiting on English speaking customers. One controversial area of court decisions in this area is whether the personal preference of an employer’s clients is valid “business necessity”. In other words, can an employer make you speak only in English if his clients claim that they don’t want you speaking another language? The courts are divided on this issue. An unbiased judge would probably rule that such preference is racist or biased and cannot form valid business necessity. Unfortunately some courts are very uninformed about this area of law or, worse yet, have anti-immigrant judges on the bench — these courts may say that the preference of a client is perfectly valid “business necessity” even if an objective observer would disagree.
A. Basically, business necessity means that a job requirement must bear a reasonable relationship to the occupation in the context of the employer’s business and is essential to perform in a reasonable manner the job duties as described by the employer. Example One: A U.S. published Chinese newspaper requires Chinese language credentials in its recruitment of editors. In this case, Chinese language bears a reasonable relationship to the editing of a Chinese newspaper, and is essential to perform in a reasonable manner the job duties as a Chinese newspaper editor. Therefore, the language requirement constitutes business necessity. Example Two: A Chinese restaurant requires Chinese language credentials in its recruitment of cooks. In this case, language bears little reasonable relationship to the cooking occupation, and is not essential to perform in a reasonable manner the job duties as a cook. Therefore, the language requirement does not constitute business necessity.
Prove that for a particular job in a Business, the Business is seriously affected if they go with Onet classification requirements and have to bump up their requirements and hire competent people to stay in business. Obviously this is very hard to prove. Good Luck.Posts: 43 | Registered: August 23, 2004maverick13 Member posted June 14, 2005 10:14 AM job zone 4 same for everyone Not true, both chemical and civil engineer positions come under job zone 4 and not job zone 5. Hence if they exceed the job zone 4 requirements DOL WILL ASK for business necessity justification the same way that they will ask for software engineering positions in job zone 4. [QUOTE]Originally posted by PleaEAD: Hello hp18: I think Chemical/ civil engg positions are not problem to exceed zone4. CHemical engg positions can fall into Zone 5 and DOL will not ask for the business necessity. Only software engg positions cannot exceed zone 4. So, even if the company requires BS + years and pays the prevailing wage you
