Thread: Del. out to educate immigrant labor force

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs ... /702050335

Del. out to educate immigrant labor force
OSHA, state offer safety classes as workers shift to construction trades
By RANDALL CHASE, Associated Press
Posted Monday, February 5, 2007

DOVER -- As Delaware's rural landscape gives way to housing developments, immigrant workers who once took jobs in the agriculture and poultry industries are turning to home construction and landscaping.

While reaping the rewards, those workers also have become prone to workplace injuries, prompting efforts to ensure that Hispanic and other non-English speaking workers receive proper safety training.

"You can get in trouble if all you do is sit them down and show a video and it stops there," said Ron Jester, an extension safety specialist with the University of Delaware in Georgetown. "That's not adequate training."

Jester, executive director of the Delmarva Safety Association, is joining with the state Department of Labor to sponsor two employer workshops this month on safely managing non-English speaking workers.

The workshops are scheduled for today in Dover and Feb. 15 in Wilmington. A similar event in Wilmington last year drew a standing-room-only crowd, but only about 20 employers have signed up for each of this year's workshops.

"This year, the response is not so good," said Paul Kessler, a safety consultant with the Labor Department, adding that companies still have time to sign up.

Jester said the workshops are targeted at, but not restricted to, the construction and landscaping industries. Topics to be addressed include safety training, cultural sensitivities and finding translators within the local community.

Three years ago, the association entered a formal alliance with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration to reduce workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths among Spanish-speaking workers.

"With the reduction of the farmland, everything was being turned over to residential construction," said Vince Soss, acting area director for OSHA, which is responsible for enforcing workplace safety laws in Delaware. "There was an increase in landscape workers, there was a huge increase in residential construction."

"The majority of the time that we come on to a site in Delaware, it's a bilingual work force," Soss added.

With the increase in Hispanic workers came a corresponding increase in the number being hurt in construction accidents such as falls, and by landscaping equipment such as riding lawn mowers and chain saws.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Hispanics accounted for about 6 percent of the 4,360 nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses in Delaware resulting in lost work days in 2004. But they accounted for 15 percent of incidents in the construction and excavation industries, and equal percentages of hand-tool injuries and falls to lower levels.

Soss said roofing and siding has emerged as one of the more dangerous trades.

"That's one of the leading causes of serious injuries or fatalities," he said.

But Kessler said spreading the safety message to Hispanic workers and the people who employ them can be difficult.

"A lot of it is guys working out of their trucks, and that's why it's hard to get hold of these people for training," he said. "Trying to get to the workers themselves is very difficult, because they just don't want to talk to government."

Another problem is the wide range of dialects within the Hispanic community.

"It's very difficult to match all of the dialects," said Ed Capodanno, state president of the Associated Builders and Contractors Inc., which has worked with Delaware Technical & Community College in recent years to offer Spanish-language courses geared toward construction site managers.

Capodanno said the biggest influx of Hispanics to the construction industry has been in Kent and Sussex counties.

"They are coming over from the other industries, and we are seeing a big influx of Hispanic workers," he said. "We've been getting increasing demands to do bilingual training for Spanish-speaking workers."

Kessler said improved training and more attention to safety could help employers lower their workers compensation premiums.

IF you are here legally, WELCOME TO AMERICA - WE SPEAK ENGLISH AND EXPECT YOU TO DO SO ALSO. Otherwise, get the hell out of my country and don't come back.

Originally Posted by JadedBaztard

IF you are here legally, WELCOME TO AMERICA - WE SPEAK ENGLISH AND EXPECT YOU TO DO SO ALSO. Otherwise, get the hell out of my country and don't come back.

AMEN!!!!Jaded, I hear ya here!!

Company I worked for in Florida would test "immigrants" and they would be terminated if they could not pass an english test after 1 year of employment. Not so for there sub-contracted workers.
They said this was for safety reasons. what BS

We have production employees here where I work that just got their 10 year service awards with the company. They cannot speak, write or understand english. All of their company mandated training and annual classes such as Sexual Harassment Awareness, Business Ethics, etc. is done in their own lanquage. They do a vietnamese, spanish and english version of each. It gets to me every time I have to walk through the plant, which is several times each day.

I have a friend who's employer is outsourcing their work to India. How insulting is it to train a bunch of foreigners to do your job, and then have all of the customers call and complain, not only that the service is poor, but they can't understand what they are saying either. The sad part is that the Americans have to pick up the slack and deal with the disgruntled people.

Originally Posted by had_enuf

Kessler said improved training and more attention to safety could help employers lower their workers compensation premiums.

Kessler is assuming that these workers are legal and are covered by workman's comp. At least here, a big reason for having employees off the books is so that the company doesn't have to pay the insurance expenses.

My youngest son applied for work with a construction contractor at our local electric plant. There was a Spanish speaking guy there applying also. He indicated that he wanted my boy to write something on his application. My boy did that and handed it back. The guy looked over the application and questioned a description. "I am sheet?" and my boy said "yes you are." The company hired both on the spot and had them working up on a scaffold. Later in the day the Hispanic guy started trying to remove some pins that would cause the scaffold to drop them three storeys to the ground. My boy kept telling him to stop, and the guy just kept at it, smiling and speaking in Spanish. My boy left right then.