Forget bilingual debate when the issue is workforce safety and Hispanics
Time to put the English-only chatter on hold when it comes to workforce safety.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study that said Hispanics suffer more work-related injuries and deaths than any other segment of the population. Plenty of reasons for the high numbers, including more Hispanics in risky jobs such as construction and manufacturing. But another big reason for Hispanics dying on the job is a lack of basic communication and a willingness by employers to offer safety training in other languages. If workers can't read the safety manuals or they don't understand the safety training class instructor, chances for accidents go up.
Surprisingly, New Mexico is not on the list of state's with the highest number of Hispanic work-related deaths from 2003 to 2006. California, Texas and Florida are in the top three. New Mexico isn't even in the top 10, according to the CDC.
There's no indication that New Mexico's companies are doing a better job at communicating to their workforce in Spanish. No matter that our state didn't make the list of highest work-related deaths, it's still troubling that more Hispanics die on the job than other U.S. workers, and the rate is highest among the foreign-born, according to the federal study released in June. Construction industry work accounted for a third of the Hispanic fatalities.
The CDC reviewed more than 11,000 Hispanic work-related deaths between 1992 and 2006. About 95 percent were men.
Dr. Sherry Baron, who studies health disparities for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said the figures aren't surprising because Hispanics, foreign and non-foreign born, tend to work in riskier jobs -- construction, roofing and manufacturing. But she also found that the language barrier might play a key role in the numbers of Hispanics who are either seriously hurt or killed on the job.
"Hispanics are working in riskier jobs where they have inadequate training and supervision, and this is exacerbated by the language barrier and low literacy levels, especially for foreign-born Hispanics," Baron said in a story reported by Federica Narancio of the McClatchy new service.
Catherine Singley, of the National Council La Raza, a non-profit that advocates for Latino issues, said her group was looking into Hispanic worker fatalities and injuries, too. "Our preliminary findings show that there is a lot of exploitation in the workplace, for legal and illegal immigrants alike," she said in the McClatchy story.
One fear is that training manuals and the safety training are not available to workers in Spanish, and that contributes to the deaths and injuries, she said.
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About Barbara Armijo
Barbara Armijo has spent 21 years as a journalist, most of those years with the Albuquerque Journal. She worked in almost every corner of the newsroom as a sports reporter, features writer, general assignments reporter and business reporter. She spent the last few years on the Journal’s editorial...
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