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Immigrants’ deadly truth: Laborers more likely to die
By Casey Ross
Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - Updated: 08:31 AM EST

Immigrant worker fatalities in Massachusetts have jumped fourfold since 2000, raising alarms among regulators and safety advocates who are seizing on a new report as proof of worsening exploitation of foreign-born laborers.

The report, released yesterday by the AFL-CIO, indicates that while the state’s overall workplace death rate remains low, immigrant worker fatalities reached a 12-year high of 21 in 2004, an increase from 5 in 2000 and 7 in 2001.

“This is the dirty secret of our labor market,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugees Advocacy Coalition. “Immigrants are working the highest-risks jobs.”

Advocates for foreign-born employees say their deaths often leave grief-stricken spouses with no income or skills to support their families. Some end up joining daily mobs of immigrants who line up to work in jobs with harsh conditions for subsistence wages.

This month, immigrant worker Romildo DaSilva, 27, of Brazil, was one of three men to perish in the scaffolding collapse on Boylston Street in Boston, while Carlos Gonzalez Lopez, 47, of Lawrence, died after a 25-foot fall during a construction accident in Easton.

“You can go to any street corner and find immigrant workers waiting en masse to be picked up and taken to dangerous jobs,” said Mary Goldstein-Gelb, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health. “They are not being trained properly.”

The gruesome stories of workplace deaths leave horrifying imprints on laborers’ communities. In October 2005, Valdecir Rodrigues, a Brazilian immigrant, died at Atlantic Stone in Hudson when he was crushed by sheets of granite weighing 2,200 pounds.

His death left his widow, Elisabete, 28, with no income to support her children, ages 2 and 10.

“She cries all the time,” said Fausto Da Rocha of the Brazilian Immigrant Center. “She was a homemaker. Her job was caring for her husband and children. She has never worked before.”

In 2004, deaths hit workers from Pakistan, Vietnam, Guatemala, Mexico, Egypt and the Dominican Republic, according to Masscosh.

The AFL-CIO’s report indicates immigrant deaths have steadily increased in Massachusetts, hitting 21 in 2004 after leveling off at 14 in 2002 and 2003. The 2004 deaths account for about 25 percent of the state’s workplace fatalities, while immigrant workers made up about 17 percent of the work force.

Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health is set to release its 2005 figures at the State House Friday. Regulators say they are targeting exploitation with English/Spanish radio ads next week emphasizing that employers must provide workers compensation.