Workforce Language Services

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.

Many undocumented workers have learned a valuable lesson after being injured on the job: “Don’t be afraid to talk to a lawyer.”

CNN reports that two undocumented workers recently won settlements totaling $3.85 million after suffering workplace accidents. Undocumented workers suffer accidents and death disproportionally due largely to lack of safety protections. Illegal or not, they have the same right to claim damages as citizens or legal residents.

Although it is illegal for an employer to knowingly hire a worker who is undocumented, according to the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigration Affairs, if an undocumented worker is hired by an employer, he or she then has the right to be paid minimum wage and overtime, the right to health protection and workplace safety, and the right to organize to improve labor conditions.

“Each of these men was injured in the course of their work on construction sites, and their immigration status was irrelevant to their right to seek redress for those injuries,” [Brian] O’Dwyer explained in a statement. “Enforcing laws requiring a safe workplace serves the interests of all Americans, whether they are citizens or not.”

These settlements bring much needed notice to unsafe conditions at work-sites (especially in construction) that undocumented workers face. Employers should be encouraged to make sure all workers understand how to protect themselves.

Read the full story here.

An online article suggests some reasons why a company would want to offer English classes to its employees:

Some companies that don’t provide English language skills training said they would do so if it would increase productivity (27%), increase employee engagement (17.7%), improve employees’ career opportunities—regardless of what their native language is (17.7%), improve workplace safety (12.5%), improve bilingual employees’ career opportunities (11.5%), reduce turnover (5.2%), and demonstrate the company’s commitment to immigrant communities (5.2%).

The article also recommends looking into community resources for employees to access English lessons as well as considering providing classes on site.  While onsite classes would obviously cost more for the company, one of the benefits would be the ability to target the lessons to what employees need to know to be successful and safe in that particular industry.

To read the entire article, click here.

With funding support from the Missouri Foundation for Health, Centro Latino will provide health literacy and access for Latinos in mid-Missouri.  Thomas Adams, lead program officer, states that they already have various programs with components for Latinos, but this new initiative solely focuses on helping low-income, rural Latinos understand and access health care.

The agency is not new to assisting this demographic with their health care needs, but the new model will essentially allow them to guide limited English proficient Latinos through a health care system they may not understand very well:

Public health and social service have always been a large part of Centro Latino’s service to the community. Over the past decade, it has helped visitors with many procedures that can make health care complicated for those who struggle with English or are new to the area, like the filling out of medical forms, the translation of documents, the procuring of care for those without insurance or documentation.

“I just want the people to feel comfortable and supported and not alone.  Many times when one arrives here they feel very alone,” said Zapata, who has already begun her work with Promotores.

With the new program, Crespi expects its public health and social service efforts to be even more organized than before. He also hopes that the program will encourage more people to take advantage of the number of resources provided by Centro Latino (ESL classes, Spanish courses and an after-school youth program).

Follow this link to read the entire article from the Missourian.