Workforce Language Services

Last week I presented a session at the 69th Annual Wisconsin Safety & Health Conference.  In the US, there are approximately 50 million Latinos –  one in six Americans (and 1 in 4 children!) – and the Hispanic population accounts for over half of US population growth in the last decade.  I shared some eye-opening statistics, such as the following:

• 14 people die every day at work.
• The workplace fatality rate among Latinos is 13.5% higher than for US workers overall.
• Of the 11,303 Latino workers who died from work-related injuries from 2003-2006, 34% worked in construction.

Why is the fatality rate so much higher among Latinos?  For starters, Latino immigrants work in high-risk jobs, such as construction, at a higher rate than the general population.  Then there’s the language barrier.  Approximately 65% of low-wage immigrant workers are Limited English Proficient (LEP), and not surprisingly, OSHA estimates that over a quarter of workplace injuries are attributable to the language barrier.

But it’s not just language; it’s culture, too.  Among Latino immigrants, safety is often viewed through a different lens.  Back home, there are far fewer government inspections of work sites, and in the event of a violation, a bribe often makes it go away.  Workers may be required to risk their safety, as workers are often perceived is dispensable.  Is this in every work site?  Of course not.  But it’s not uncommon.

In the US, these workers often fear that a complaint about unsafe work conditions or a request for personal protective equipment would cause them to lose their job.  And what about reporting workplace injuries? There is the same concern. Moreover, for undocumented workers, a fear of deportation frequently serves as further motivation to quietly self-treat injuries that should be reported and treated.  There’s also the perception that safety regulations exist to protect American-born workers, who aren’t as “tough,” as well as the perception that the government doesn’t truly care about immigrant workers and their well-being.

So what can you do to improve the safety of your workplace?  Some suggestions:

1. Ensure that safety materials are reader-friendly and translated into the language(s) of your workforce.  But that’s not enough: lower levels of literacy mean that you need to be sure to then train people – in their language – to ensure that these procedures and policies are understood.  This can be done by hiring an interpreter or by using a bilingual supervisor.
2. Consider offering job-specific English as a Second Language training.  This will help improve safety, productivity and engagement, and it will also help increase your pool of internal promotion candidates.
3. Consider offering job-specific Spanish training (as well as other languages of your workplace).  With a focus on safety expressions and other key vocabulary, your managers will significantly increase their communication skills while at the same time developing your employees’ trust.

Workplace safety is too important to cut corners.  Don’t let things get lost in translation!

-Jill Kushner Bishop, PhD

Several farm worker interest groups are petitioning the EPA to require manufacturers to translate their pesticide labels to Spanish. The groups’ goal is to increase protection for farm works that apply agricultural pesticides.

The EPA is currently debating the issue and calling for public comment in the decision-making process. The EPA says in a press release that they recognize the decision will affect all consumers, not just farm workers. Currently, the EPA requires translation of some words or phrases of agricultural pesticides, but does not require bilingual labeling on all products.

The EPA comments:

In response to the petition, EPA is considering whether to require bilingual labeling in English and Spanish  for all pesticides or for only certain types of pesticides, certain pesticide use sites, certain pesticide active ingredients, pesticides in certain toxicity categories, or certain parts of pesticide labels.

This decision will be up for public comment until June 28, 2011. Information on the petition and how to participate can be found here.

Here are 3 questions the EPA asks the general public to consider:

1. Language characteristics vary by culture, region, and other factors. How could EPA ensure that Spanish text on pesticide product labels would be understood by all potential Spanish-speaking users?
2. Labeling in Spanish could potentially be required for all pesticide products, for a subset of pesticide products, or for a portion of the product label. If the Agency concluded that translation of a portion or portions of the label were appropriate, which portions of the pesticide label would it be most beneficial to have in Spanish, and why? If the Agency were to limit the requirement for translation to only certain products, which products should be considered, and why? (Note: please see the sample label in the docket to consider the different sections of a pesticide label.
3. Are there languages other than Spanish and English that EPA should consider for inclusion on pesticide labels? Which languages? Please explain your reasoning for including a language other than Spanish or English on pesticide labels, and cite documents that would further bolster your suggestion.

What’s the easiest way to prevent citation and penalties during an OSHA worksite inspection? According to OSHA, in fiscal year 2010, the ten most commonly cited standards were improperly implemented:

1. Scaffolding

2. Fall Protection

3. Hazard Communication

4. Respiratory Protection

5. Ladder Use

6. Lockout/ Tagout Procedures

7. Electrical and Wiring Methods

8. Powered Industrial Trucks

9. General Electrical Requirements

10. Machine Guarding

Far too many preventable injuries occur due to the failure to properly implement these standards.  A great way to avoid these infractions is to translate your employee manuals and safety materials into the languages most commonly spoken in your worksite. You can also bring an on-site language trainer to go over the OSHA procedures in a simplified English training for your Limited English Proficient (LEP) employees.

Workforce Language Services offers translations in 50+ languages as well as on-site English and Spanish vocational training. Contact Hilary Hodge, Director or Programs, for more information hilary@workforcelang.com.

Instructions from your doctor can be confusing enough without adding a language barrier into the equation. So it’s not surprising that bad translations of prescription instructions can lead to dangerous results. What is surprising is that of the prescription companies that provide translations, many use machine-generated translations which only have a 50% accuracy rate.

“It’s something I experience in practice every day,” said Dr. Alejandro Clavier, who works at Esperanza Health Center in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood on the Southwest Side.

He gave an example of an anemic patient who showed no signs of improved iron levels after taking prescribed supplements. Clavier discovered the patient had been taking only one drop of the supplements instead of the amount that Clavier had prescribed. The patient had received confusing prescription instructions from the pharmacy.

Often misspellings or “Spanglish” in prescriptions can cause confusion, like “poca” (little) instead of “boca,” or “once a day” being misinterpreted as the Spanish “once” which means “eleven.”

Carmen Velasquez, director of the Alivio Medical Center in Pilsen where the majority of patients speak Spanish, believes a machine translation as substitute for a human being is an inappropriate solution.

“It’s health care. If you have the responsibility of human life, you better well know what you are doing and saying,” Velasquez said.

To read the full Chicago Tribune article, click here.

More than 400,000 children work on farms nationwide, making up about 20% of the U.S. farm workforce. The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Program wants to put a end the exploitation of migrant child workers. Their first stop: North Carolina.

The Children in the Fields campaign is working to build grassroots support in North Carolina and four other key states to combat the exploitation of U.S farm worker children.

“This state (North Carolina) has thousands of migrants in the fields and is an area with a lot of agricultural activity, where the problem of children working in dangerous conditions is very large and growing,” [regional coordinator Emily] Drakage told EFE Thursday.

Children are permitted to accompany their parents in the fields at the age of 12, and by the age of 14 can work hours that do not interfere with the school day.  No child under the age of 16 can perform any “dangerous” activities, as defined by the Department of Labor.

However, kids as young as 6-years-old have been found laboring in the fields for 12 hours a day, around plants “treated with pesticides, in extreme weather conditions and surrounded by machinery with sharp blades.”

In addition to the dangerous conditions, migrant worker children also face linguistic barriers due to missing school and educational growth.

Read more about this issue in the Latin American Herald Tribune article.

Brigido Oregon, a West Michigan migrant farm worker from Texas, was chained, jailed and threatened with deportation for 17 days, all while pleading his innocence. Oregon is in fact a legal citizen of the United States, but immigration officials didn’t believe him.

Oregon shared his story at a public hearing for the Michigan Civil Rights Commission in August. The Commission intends to bring to light violations against farm workers, which are unfortunately commonplace.

The state agency’s intent is to make it easier for farm workers to file complaints, said civil rights’ commission chairman Matthew Wesaw. The commission also plans to issue a public report on it’s findings in October — the first time in 40 years that the commission has conducted a study on farm worker violations, said Wesaw.

“What we’re seeing is that things aren’t just the same, they’re worse than ever before,” Wesaw told approximately 70 people gathered at the GVSU meeting.

State civil rights officials are investigating several reports of poor living conditions and employers not paying promised wages. Some farm workers have reported being threatened with deportation if they complained about conditions or treatment.

Click here to read the full story from the Muskegon News. Also see related article, “Tempers flare between state agencies over farm workers’ civil rights violations.”

Low-wage workers are consistently denied proper payment—some paid less than minimum wage, and some not compensated for overtime—a new study found. 68% of workers interviewed in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago reported a pay-related violation in the previous week.

The New York Times reports that the study’s authors were surprised by the prevalence of the violation.

“The conventional wisdom has been that to the extent there were violations, it was confined to a few rogue employers or to especially disadvantaged workers, like undocumented immigrants,” said Nik Theodore, an author of the study and a professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago. “What our study shows is that this is a widespread phenomenon across the low-wage labor market in the United States.”

Also surprising is the extent to which the bad practice affects women and especially immigrant workers. African-Americans had a violation rate almost triple that of whites.

The report brings up the fact that employers often discourage workers from filing workers’ compensation for missed days and medical care: only 8% of workers who suffered injuries on the job did so.

Low-wage workers take a 15% hit to their salaries due to these violations, but the economy suffers too:

“These practices are not just morally reprehensible, but they’re bad for the economy,” said Annette Bernhardt, an author of the study and policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project. “When unscrupulous employers break the law, they’re robbing families of money to put food on the table, they’re robbing communities of spending power and they’re robbing governments of vital tax revenues.”

Read the full NYTimes article here.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 17% drop in Hispanic fatalities between 2008 and the year before, from 937 to 774 deaths. CNN reports:

Since records began being collected in 1992, statistics have shown that Hispanic workers are killed in the workplace at a higher rate than other ethnic or racial groups.

In 2001, the disparity was the most striking. Hispanics suffered fatal injuries at a rate of 6 out of 100,000 workers that year, while the rates for white and black workers were 4.2 and 3.8, respectively.

The statistics released Thursday show the gap is closing.

The gap may be closing somewhat, but the drop is probably related more to the poor economy and lack of work than an improvement in conditions. “I think we will see an increase when activity picks up,” said Teresa Molina, president of the board of directors of Sunflower Community Action in Wichita, Kansas.

Lack of understanding safety issues because of the language barrier, as well as exploitation (workers not being provided proper safety tools, and being overworked) are factors that contribute to the disproportionate rates of injuries and fatalities of Hispanics on the job.

Click here to read the full CNN article.

2007 saw 937 Hispanic worker deaths compared to 533 in 1992 (a 76% increase); nationwide, total fatalities have dropped in that time period (USA Today reports.) Texas alone reported 50 Hispanic workplace deaths last year.

While an increase of Hispanics in the general workforce has increased as well, it’s clear that there are other reasons causing the discrepancy. First, there’s the language barrier—workers who aren’t able to communicate important information to their supervisors, and vice versa, can miss important instructions that lead to accidents. Then, illegal workers are often exploited—not given proper safety tools for example, or are overworked.

Some more reasons cited:

Workers without legal documentation to be in the U.S. are less inclined to join a union, which helps protect workers, or protest when conditions seem dangerous, said Raj Nayak of the California-based National Employment Law Project. “They’re doing the most dangerous work for longer hours,” Nayak said.

Click here to read the full USA Today article, where most info is gathered from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Relatedly, many workers and their families are not aware of their right to compensation when an accident occurs (legal and illegal workers alike).  See post “Lack of safety training keeps Hispanic construction workers dangerously out of the loop.”

A recent construction fatality caught the attention of the U.S. Hispanic Contractors Association. Worker Fontino Cortes Cruz lost his life when he was struck on a highway by a speeding motorist, who then fled the scene. Unfortunately, this happens all too often.

Construction comes in second behind mining as the most dangerous career: an average of 3.3 people, 2.4 of whom are Hispanic, die every day in construction (and often highway) related accidents.

Research gathered by the association reports that Hispanic workers account for 55 percent of the construction workforce in Texas. Fuentes said research gathered by The Bureau of Labor Statistics states foreign-born Hispanics account for 76 percent of all Hispanic construction workers and account for 66 percent of federal injuries.

Despite these numbers, OSHA has not adequately provided safety guidelines in Spanish, Fuentes said, even after former President Bush passed legislation in his first term that required building codes to be translated.

These startling numbers are a testament to the importance of all workers, especially non-English speakers, understanding safety guidelines of their workplace, whether on the highway or in a skyscraper. The association offers OSHA training courses to construction workers, whose goal is to educate construction workers in their native language.

Workforce Language Services also offers construction safety training in Spanish and English.

To read the full article, click here.