Hispanic Workers Die at Higher Rate

July 16, 2001

The news item below from today's NYTimes is evidence that there are some

important research studies underway in the area of Hispanics and

occupational death rates. Those of us interested in farm labor in this area

might want to collaborate or share findings with the researchers noted in

this article. To take a look at the raw data they're used for these studies

from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, visit

http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.toc.htm.

Mimi

--

Mimi ez McKay

msfwhealth@...

July 16, 2001

New York Times

Hispanic Workers Die at Higher Rate

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Often hired for low-end jobs like construction labor and

meatpacking, Hispanic immigrants in the United States die from workplace

injuries at a far higher rate than other workers.

In recent years the rate of on-the- job deaths for all

Hispanics has been 20 percent higher than for whites or blacks, the Bureau

of Labor Statistics has found. The death rate for Hispanics in construction,

an industry that has hired many immigrants in recent years, is even higher,

occupational experts say.

Job safety officials say that Hispanic immigrants, often

unskilled and often here illegally, are hired disproportionately into many

of the most dangerous jobs, like roofing, fruit picking and taxi driving.

Recent occupational safety reports say Hispanic construction

workers have died when they have slipped off wet roofs and when the trenches

they have been digging have

collapsed and buried them. These reports also detail numerous incidents in

which migrant farm workers died when crowded vans crashed while their

foremen were driving them to the fields.

Dana Loomis, a professor of epidemiology at the University of

North Carolina who has studied racial disparities in occupational injuries,

said, " There is a long history of discriminatory hiring in the United States

involving immigrants, with the result that for many, many years, immigrants

have done the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. "

" In many parts of the country, " Professor Loomis said, " recent

Latino immigrants are being hired because they will accept lower wages and

poorer working conditions than U.S.-born workers. "

Authorities on occupational safety point to another factor

behind the higher injury rate. Hispanic immigrants, partly because many do

not speak English, often receive less job and safety training than American-

born workers do. Safety experts say language barriers often contribute to

the higher Hispanic injury rate, noting, for instance, that at many job

sites, safety instructions and warnings appear only in English.

" If someone yells, `Watch out,' you don't necessarily act as

fast if it's not your native language, " said Platner, associate

director of the Center to Protect Worker Rights, an educational arm of the

Building Trades Department of the A.F.L.- C.I.O.

A workplace injury last year in Colorado involved a

19-year-old Hispanic worker who slipped off a wet roof, broke his back and

was paralyzed. His supervisor did not speak Spanish and said that made it

difficult to tell the worker, who did not speak English, that the roof was

dangerously slick. In Texas, job safety officials say, a Hispanic workerdied

from carbon monoxide poisoning because he was not able to read a warning

telling workers not to use power cleaners in enclosed spaces.

Occupational safety experts say one of the most startling

statistics is that the number of Hispanic construction workers who died in

workplace accidents rose to 223 in 1999 from 133 three years earlier. That

was a 68 percent jump; by contrast, the number of Hispanic construction

workers rose by 20 to 30 percent in that three-year period, industry

officials estimate.

" Part of it is that Hispanic workers, with their limited job

prospects, are more likely than U.S.-born workers to do things that are more

dangerous because they are more afraid about losing their job if they refuse

to do it, " said Tom O'Connor, executive director of the North Carolina

Occupational Safety and Health Project, a nonprofit education group. " And

part of it is these workers might be more afraid to speak up about dangerous

things on the job. And part of it is they are more likely to be employed by

fly-by-night contractors who are more likely to cut corners. "

In its most recent Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, the

Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in 1999, Hispanic workers had a

fatality rate of 5.2 per 100,000, compared with 4.4 for white workers and

4.1 for black workers. The rates were nearly identical for those groups in

1998. The bureau found that 725 of the 6,023 occupational deaths reported in

1999 involved Hispanic workers.

Moure-Eraso, a professor of work environment at the

University of Massachusetts in Lowell, said the federal statistics probably

underreported deaths and injuries to Hispanic workers because many employers

are reluctant to report incidents involving illegal immigrants.

" Hispanics are overrepresented in two of the most dangerous

industries: agriculture and construction, " said Rosemary Sokas, associate

director for science at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and

Health, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

" People who have migrated for agricultural work often move into construction

work, which is really high risk as well. "

With the construction industry booming in recent years, many

contractors have relieincreasingly on day laborers picked up to fill job

openi ngs.

" If you're a day laborer who gets picked up at a local

7-Eleven and paid cash for that day, there's no opportunity to learn about

safety on the job, " Mr. Platner said. " They're not going to spend a day

teaching you about safety. "

Hispanic immigrants are often funneled into the most dangerous

construction jobs, like roofing, trench digging and carrying heavy

materials. In 1999, the fatality rate for roofers was six times the average

for all jobs, and for construction laborers, the least skilled building

workers, it was eight times as high.

In a survey of 50 Hispanic construction workers by Mr.

O'Connor's safety project, the workers said they were frequently given

dangerous tasks that American workers did not want. The workers, who said

they had little information about their right to safe conditions, said they

believed that Hispanic employers were worse to work for than Americans

because they were less caring about safety and working conditions.

Another reason for the high fatality rate, safety experts

said, is that Hispanic immigrants are usually newer to their jobs than

Americans. One Bureau of Labor Statistics study found that 12 percent of

serious injuries occurred during a worker's first day at a job site.

And part of the problem is cultural, some Hispanic workers

say. " We are not really used to working in a very safe manner, " said Dan

, a roofer and safety instructor in Santa Clara, Calif. " On top of

that we are often not well informed by the employers on safety precautions. "

Carolyn Guglielmo, director of safety services for Associated

General Contractors, an industry association representing more than 20,000

building contractors nationwide, said there was a big communication gap

between Hispanic workers and many building contractors.

Ms. Guglielmo said that many companies were trying to teach

their supervisors to speak Spanish and that her association was promoting

Spanish videos to teach Hispanic workers how to take precautions at work and

protect themselves.

Dan Milinazzo, safety director for Associated General

Contractors in Colorado, predicted that the death rate for Hispanics would

decline as the immigrants moved into safer jobs higher up on the economic

ladder and as more Hispanics moved into supervisory positions, enabling them

to provide more bilingual training.

_________________________________________________________________

Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

July 16, 2001

,

You're correct. Ray Parris is here today. He, Rod and I are devoting

today to writing the pieces for Jayne Bertovich for grant application. I

think this will also help us all figure out what to do about TIDES RFP 4.

I spoke with Kathy Ku of TIDES today. Generally, organizations funded in

RFP 3 are not eligible for RFP 4. Our EMR project and their other

" Advancing the Field " project are the two exceptions. I do think it should

be one collaborative application. I'm giving you a call to discuss.

-----Original Message-----

From: Mimi McKay [mailto:msfwhealth@...]

Sent: Monday, July 16, 2001 9:46 AM

Subject: [ ] Hispanic Workers Die at Higher Rate