Workers take manufacturer's offer of free English classes

Gary Platt Manufacturing, a maker of casino seating in Reno, provides a new-fangled benefit to its production workers: Improved ability to communicate with their co-workers in the front office.

Since last autumn, the company has offered free English-language training to Spanish-speaking production workers, and as many as a dozen show up on their own time on Saturday mornings to work with teacher Erika Perez de Jennings.

"People appreciate it. They know we care," says Skip Davis, chief operating officer of the company.

English language skills vary widely among the production staff of approximately 30 at Gary Platt Manufacturing. Some are fluent English speakers; others barely so.

Better skill in the language obviously improves communication within the company, but Davis says that wasn't really the point of the company's decision.

"We did it primarily for them, and only secondarily for us in the business," he says. "It helps give them a little confidence."

While the cost of contracting with Perez de Jennings' Reno-based Language and Citizen-ship Services isn't inexpensive, Bob Yabroff, president and chief executive officer of Gary Platt Manufacturing, says the company simply believes the training is the right thing to do.

Perez de Jennings previously focused much of her work on teaching Spanish to English-speakers such as Reno mining executives soon to be posted to Chile.

The Gary Platt workers, she says, are far more interested in the spoken language than they are in learning to read and write.

A challenge for the teacher is the lack of formal education among some of the workers.

"For most of them, this is the first formal training they have had," Perez de Jennings says, "but they have a lot of enthusiasm."