Volume 31 Number 02 Thursday, January 11, 2001	Page S-22
ISSN 1522-4082
Report Supplement Regional Perspectives
Outlook 2001 Hispanic Workers Face Disparate Risk, Are Overrepresented in Hazardous Jobs

Hispanic workers, among them recent immigrants who toil in dangerous jobs including construction, food processing, and farm work, face about a 20 percent greater risk of being killed on the job than black and white workers combined, according to Rafael Moure-Eraso, professor of work environment at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

The risk disparity is often blamed on language and cultural differences, educational levels, and the preponderance of Hispanics working in dangerous occupations. But what to do about the increased risk is a more complex question and one that was undertaken at a recent forum on Hispanic health and safety. Those who attended tackled issues from pesticide exposure and construction hazards to international worker health issues and agreed that more basic research and improved statistics are needed to better understand the status of Hispanic workers.

"What is needed is solid research on what the problem is. What factors play a big role--culture, language and poverty. You need to understand what role these different things play," said Brian Christopher, executive director of the Alice Hamilton Occupational Health Center, a worker training center in Silver Spring, Md.

The first-ever national forum on the topic was held Oct. 18-19 in Orlando, Fla., and was sponsored by the National Safety Council, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Pan-American Health Organization, and the National Alliance for Hispanic Health. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was represented at the forum but was not a sponsor. A second forum is scheduled to be held in 2001 in Atlanta.

Strategies that were developed out of the forum included specific changes such as asking that OSHA request for information on ethnicity, country-of-origin data, language fluency, and literacy on its Accident Investigation Information Form (Form 170). Other proposals were more general and long range, such as creating coalitions to improve conditions for farm workers and encouraging employers to provide access to English classes.

"This is the type of effort that requires real collaboration," said Arnoldo Ramos, of the D.C. Council of Latino Agencies, who attended the forum. A combination of federal and local governments, nonprofits, labor, and employers must come together for prevention, education, and advocacy for Hispanic workers.

In addition, Ramos said, "The community itself has to rise up and demand resources."

Without this movement from the community and other interested parties, employers "are not willingly going to spend a cent to improve conditions," he said.

Proceedings from the forum were being completed in December 2000 after nongovernmental organizations and community-based groups have had a chance to comment on the results, said Claudio Ramirez of PAHO. The proceedings are expected to be published on the World Wide Web at http://www.oocities.org/hispanic_eosh/ when they are ready, he said.

Beyond these broad census figures, one of the fundamental challenges of focusing on the Hispanic population is a lack of reliable data, Moure-Eraso said.

For one, the "Hispanic" category is problematic as a way of defining individuals. It includes everyone from recent immigrants from South America, Mexico, and Central America--some of whom may not speak Spanish as their first language--to Mexican-Americans who have lived in this country for generations, said Moure-Eraso.

In many surveys, Hispanics merely are identified by surname. Rather than being a racial identifier, surnames are cultural, Moure-Eraso said. Another problem is double counting when people with Latino surnames are included even though they also might identify themselves as black or white. In addition, Brazilian immigrants are often included in Hispanic data even though they are of Portuguese origin.

The biggest missing piece is Hispanics who have entered the country illegally and are not counted by the census, Moure-Eraso said.

"How many are there? You would think it would be a simple thing to do but it's not," Moure-Eraso said.

"These people come starved for jobs so there are no questions asked. That means no training for the job at hand," said Moure-Eraso. "This is a very vulnerable population that is being exploited."

Examples of the way in which immigrant workers are abused include these cases from late 2000:

A contract labor firm pleaded guilty Dec. 8 to a scheme of hiring unauthorized workers from Mexico, Central and South America to remove asbestos. Many of the workers were not properly trained in asbestos removal to work for the contractor which had offices in Chattanooga, Tenn., Denver, and Baton Rouge, La.; and

A vice president of a Nebraska meatpacking company and five other individuals were charged Dec. 5 with conspiring to transport and hire undocumented workers from Mexico to work for the company's Omaha, Neb., processing plant. The meat packing industry has one of the highest illness and injury rates of any industry.

"It's a constant fear that you will be packed up on a plane and sent home," he said.

Moure-Eraso supports an amnesty for illegal immigrants and was encouraged that the AFL-CIO changed its position and began supporting an amnesty early in 2000. The AFL-CIO has specifically requested a more liberal amnesty to allow people with jobs to become legal residents, he said.

One sector that attracts a great number of immigrant workers is the construction industry because of the ease of entry, relatively high wages, the limited need for English literacy, and a booming economy.

The number of Hispanic workers in the construction sector has been on the rise. In 1997, Hispanics made up 11.7 percent of the construction workforce nationally, ranging from 5.4 percent in the northeast to 21 percent in the western United States. It is estimated that this rate undercounts the self-employed, which accounts for an estimated 27 percent of all construction workers, and day laborers, according to an issue paper on the construction industry that was prepared for the forum.

As the number of Hispanic construction workers has risen, so has the fatality rate. Between 1996 and 1999, the number of fatalities among Hispanic construction workers rose by 68 percent, from 133 to 223 deaths, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Despite increased enforcement action by OSHA, the number of Hispanic construction worker deaths in Georgia, Texas, and Florida remains high.

After considering a 40 percent increase in Hispanic construction fatalities between 1996 and 1997, the issue paper noted that the rate appears to be about twice that expected from their increasing presence in the industry.

Safety expectations based on a worker's home country work practices combined with unfamiliarity with worker rights are likely at the root of these fatality figures, the paper said. Almost three quarters of all construction workers are either from Mexico or are Mexican-Americans, the paper said. These workers may bring to the job site an "acceptance of higher risk work practices," the paper noted.

While the Alice Hamilton Occupational Health Center began offering Spanish-language worker safety training 10 years ago, federal agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics and OSHA have only just begun to deal with the needs of these workers, he said.

"You've had a very dramatic growth in this workforce. I would argue that you have not seen a commensurate response from OSHA," Christopher said.

At the Orlando forum in October 2000, OSHA did sign a memorandum of understanding with the National Safety Council and EPA in which the federal worker safety agency committed to cosponsoring a seminar "to promote the exchange of information on occupational safety and health issues facing Hispanic workers."

OSHA officials say materials are being translated into Spanish, more Spanish-speaking employees have been hired, and more training is being offered in Spanish.

Focusing on Hispanic workers "is something that we have been doing for quite some time," said Anne Cyr, deputy director of OSHA public affairs. One hurdle is getting information to the Hispanic worker population since, as a culture, Hispanics "are not going to be all that trusting of the federal government," Cyr said.

"We're exploring better ways to get the information to the audience," Cyr said.

For example, OSHA is working with the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division to produce a video for Spanish-speaking workers in the Delaware poultry industry. Hispanic focus groups were used to find out what issues workers were interested in. The video will be distributed through advocacy groups in the area, Cyr said.

A Spanish-language video produced in Georgia was introduced in late December 2000. Called "All About OSHA," it explains what OSHA does and the responsibilities of both workers and employers. Produced in partnership with Georgia employers, union groups, and the state Department of Labor, OSHA hopes the eight-minute video will be viewed in Latino town hall meetings, in doctor's offices, and on public access television, said Tom Brown, area director in OSHA's Atlanta-West area office.

"We're getting something out into the community that explains OSHA," he said.

OSHA is also beginning to use its enforcement powers against employers who do not make an effort to cross the language gap and keep Hispanic workers safe.

In a Sept. 13 incident in Dublin, Ga., an earth compactor overturned, catching the Hispanic operator under its rollover protection system and amputating his left leg. The worker spoke no English and his supervisors spoke no Spanish. Safety instructions for the equipment were available in English only. As a result, the worker entered a sloped area that was too steep for the compactor, according to Raymond Finney, the OSHA Atlanta-East area director. The company was cited for one willful safety violation with a fine of $49,000.

"We are seeing an increase in accidents involving Hispanic workers who have not been properly trained because of a language barrier," Finney said.

Thanks to globalization and the movement of capital and immigrants, "You can't be here and ignore what is happening in the rest of the world or the region," said Luz Maritza Tennassee, regional advisor in workers' health for PAHO.

PAHO officials stress that any effort to address Hispanic worker safety must look at the informal job sector--those who work as day laborers, housekeepers, street vendors, and piece workers. This sector accounts for 57 percent of the workforce in Latin America.

"The only way to understand the problem and to find the relevant solutions is to look at Hispanics from a cultural perspective, and to do that you have to know where they are from and go all the way to their roots," PAHO's Ramirez said.