Thread: CA-Immigrant workers get help from Sacramento's Mexican Cons

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Immigrant workers get help from Sacramento's Mexican Consulate

By Stephen Magagnini and Susan Ferriss
smagagnini@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Sep. 1, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 2B

Sacramento's Mexican Consulate served up a smorgasbord of services to hundreds of Mexican immigrants Monday.

The immigrants, most of whom came for Mexican passports and consular identification cards, got advice on how to ensure they get paid and treated fairly on the job.

The consulate – one of the nation's busiest, serving 800,000 immigrants from Modesto to the Oregon border – is hosting the first-ever Labor Rights Week.

State and federal labor officials joined immigrant rights advocates and union representatives to address work- related injuries, sexual harassment, salary issues and working conditions.

The services are being offered this week at Mexican consulates across the United States as part of a binational campaign, endorsed by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, to protect Mexican workers regardless of their legal status. Sacramento's Mexican Consulate, at Eighth and J streets, is offering services from 9 am. to 1 p.m. through Friday.

Francisco Melara and Michael Connolly of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said immigrants shouldn't be afraid to speak up for their right to fair wages and safe conditions.

Adam Paulin, a strawberry picker from Weed, stopped by the California Rural Legal Assistance table to get information for family and friends. "We have nothing like this where I live," he said.

Blanca Banuelos of CRLA said she also spoke to a construction worker who had been laid off. "He said, 'I was there for 20 years, what can I do?' We're seeing a lot of people getting fired."

Undocumented workers can't get unemployment insurance, but if they are injured on the job they can qualify for disability or worker's compensation insurance, Banuelos said.

Etna Borrero of the California Department of Industrial Relations told the crowd that many people don't want to report an accident. "People think, 'I don't want to come forward at all, because they'll just throw me out,'" she said.

A report to be released today by the National Council of La Raza found that Latino workers in the United States are more likely than other ethnic groups to suffer workplace injuries and fatalities.

In 2007, according to the report, the Latino workplace fatality rate was more than 21 percent higher than the rate for white workers and almost 18 percent higher than for black workers. Latinos accounted for more than 40 percent of the 141 construction fatalities nationwide in 2007, more than 43 percent of the 54 farm deaths and more than 36 percent of the 29 roofing deaths.

Consul General Carlos González-Gutiérrez noted California is home to 4.5 million Mexican-born immigrants, about half of them undocumented.

"All workers have rights, regardless of the type of activity, nationality or immigration status," he said. "It is crucial to protect their labor rights as a way to protect the state's prosperity."


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