"Death among Hispanic construction workers have more than doubled"

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

LA PALABRA ES SEGURIDAD (THE WORD IS SAFETY)
BILINGUAL TRAINER TEACHES SAFE CONSTRUCTION PRACTICES

Sunday, May 27, 2001
Section: BUSINESS
Edition: ONE-THREE
Page: 1D
LESLIE GROSS KLAFF, Staff Writer

As Manuel "Mel" Rosas travels the Carolinas training construction workers, a troubling statistic is on his mind:
Nationally, deaths among Hispanic construction workers have more than doubled during the past decade.

As the number of Hispanics has soared in the Carolinas and other states, more of them are taking construction jobs - and
the numbers of deaths and injuries are rising as well.

This unsettling trend drives Rosas' new position - working as a bilingual safety trainer for general contractors to prevent
accidents among Hispanics.

Rosas' job is a part of a new program started in January by the Carolinas Associated General Contractors, and it's
available to the group's 3,500 member companies. The program is one of a few of its kind nationally, its organizers say,
and addresses an issue that's increasingly a concern for employers, workers and labor officials.

When workers in one of the most dangerous fields don't understand English, they're at a greater risk of getting hurt or killed.
"Often there's little or no training at all," said Rosas, a former N.C. inspector for the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration.

On another track, N.C. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry earlier this month formed the Hispanic Task Force, a
committee of 30 labor department employees who will track accidents among Hispanics and plan programs to prevent
injuries among workers in construction, agriculture and manufacturing.

And last year, several federal agencies formed the First Hispanic Forum on a Safe and Healthy Environment for officials to
discuss Hispanic worker safety, among other issues.

Nationally, fatalities among Hispanic construction workers rose 102 percent from 1994 to 1999, from 110 to 223,
according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Injuries among Hispanics grew 62 percent during the same period, from
17,739 to 28,757, while injuries among black and white workers both dropped about 20 percent.

Researchers say the number of injuries could actually be much higher because many injuries among undocumented workers
are not being counted.

A report presented at the Hispanic Forum in Orlando last year showed that from 1996 to 1997, the number of Hispanics
in construction increased 19.8 percent, while their fatality rate increased 40.7 percent.

In North Carolina, fatalities among Hispanic workers have been relatively stable, ranging from 5 to 7 in recent years,
though preliminary Labor Department data show five deaths of Hispanics since the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.

The N.C. Department of Labor doesn't record injuries by race or ethnicity. But another indicator - cases of days away
from work because of job-related injury or illness - for Hispanics has jumped 233 percent from 177 to 413 from 1994 to
1999.

The growth in Hispanic population is well documented by the U.S. Census, and anecdotal evidence shows their ranks in
construction have swelled, too.

But because the state doesn't record how many Hispanics are working in construction, there's no way to tell whether they
are more at risk than other workers for injuries or illnesses.

Still, N.C. deputy labor commissioner John Johnson, who's in charge of safety and health, said the task force is partly in
response to his inspectors seeing an alarming series of recent deaths and injuries among Hispanics.

"The (Hispanic) work force is kind of exploding and our concern is the language barrier and the communication barrier
could be contributing to some of the problems we're seeing," Johnson said. "... We don't want to wait until the fatalities
start mounting up before we say there is a problem."

South Carolina has no task force planned, and has recorded a total of five deaths among Hispanic construction workers
from 1994 to 1999. The state's Labor Department does a sample survey of injuries, which shows they've increased among
Hispanics from 16 in 1994 to 84 in 1999.

Whether a language barrier can be a factor in the accidents and deaths is not always clear.

In January in Mooresville, Elezar Juarez Garcia, 26, was killed when a pipeline trench collapsed on him while he was laying
pipe for a town utility project. State inspectors fined Garcia's company, Sanders Constructors Inc., for letting employees
occasionally work outside protective trenches and not having an escape ladder. The state cited the company for not having
materials to prevent debris from falling in trenches and not providing daily safety inspections by a qualified person. Nothing
in the accident report noted whether there was a language barrier, a labor department spokesman said.

Assigned dangerous jobs

What is clear is that Hispanics get hurt more because they are disproportionately employed in more dangerous fields, such
as construction, manufacturing and agriculture, said Rafael Moure-Eraso, a professor of work environment at University of
Massachusetts at Lowell.

Once they're in construction, Hispanics tend to work in the most dangerous jobs, said John Harris, an owner of James E.
Harris Construction Co. in Huntersville, whose workers received training from Rosas last week. They start out in
lower-paying positions because they're new to the job market and don't speak much English, and those are the riskiest
jobs, he said.

Among a crew of workers laying pipe, for example, the lower-level workers climb into the ditch, while the higher-paid
workers drive the equipment.

The OSHA standard requires employers to train each person they hire. What tends to happen at many companies, though,
is the lead supervisor is sent to training and returns to train the crew, Rosas said. Usually everything isn't relayed back to
the workers, he said. And when the workers are Hispanic, the language barrier poses an even greater challenge in training.

Or a trainer instructs the crew on the job site with a Spanish translator. While it's a start, the Spanish-speaking workers still
aren't getting the full picture, employers say. OSHA regulations are complex and difficult to translate in Spanish.

"When you use a translator, you lose some of what you're trying to tell them," said Steve Reynolds, safety director for
Crowder Construction Co. in Charlotte, whose employees also received training from Rosas.

Some of the Spanish-speaking workers at Harris Construction said they do miss some points during training with
translators. While Harris hasn't had any serious accidents, workers there said they could see how the language barrier
could lead to injuries.

"Somebody tells you it's dangerous. You don't understand it, but do it anyway," said Benjamin Cifuntes, 27, who spoke
through his bilingual coworker. Cifuntes moved to Charlotte four years ago from Mexico City and does excavation work at
Harris.

But sometimes, workers get hurt because of a lack of common sense, said Andres Cruz, 19, another worker from Mexico.

And many Hispanic workers, who come from countries such as Mexico that don't have governing bodies like OSHA, do
not understand their rights for training or receiving workers' compensation, Rosas said.

"I constantly found workers who knew nothing about OSHA," said Rosas, of his time working as an N.C. OSHA
inspector and OSHA safety director in Gastonia.

Cultural issues also come into play

Fearing they'll get fired, many Hispanics who don't know English are afraid to ask their boss to repeat directions if they
don't understand, said Jose Sanchez, 27, a foreman for Harris who has learned English since he moved to Charlotte seven
years ago from Mexico.

Some people are not afraid to ask questions, he said. But "a lot of people out there are scared, shy, afraid the boss will get
mad. They don't ask, they just do it," Sanchez said.

Training in 2 languages

So far, Rosas has trained workers at about 70 commercial builders. On Monday in Gastonia, he trained eight workers, half
of them Spanish speaking, who were building a sewage pump station.

Standing before the crew at the work site off New Hope Road, Rosas explained the mechanics of sloping and excavation,
alternating between English and Spanish.

He trains workers both on-site and in classrooms, sometimes holding separate classes for English and non-English
speaking workers. Reynolds, of Crowder Construction, said his workers got more out of Rosas' training on excavation
and working in confined spaces last month than with translators in the past.

"Right off the bat I noticed a big difference," Reynolds said. "They were enthusiastic because he was speaking their
language."

And by training workers and supervisors together, Rosas said, workers hear what's expected of them and their bosses.

"Now you change the culture of safety in the workplace," he said. "They're all on the same page."

Rosas also teaches some key words and phrases in Spanish and English. English-speaking workers tend to use a lot of
acronyms, such as "put on your PPE," for personal protective equipment. Rosas teaches the Spanish-speaking workers to
listen for that phrase.

Other states with large influxes of Hispanics, such as Texas and California, also have programs to help Hispanic workers.

In Texas, multilingual safety programs are offered through private groups and OSHA. The California Department of
Industrial Relations has bilingual staff members in its enforcement and education divisions, a spokesperson said.

In the Carolinas, Rosas says the AGC program is a start, but it only reaches the association's members. For the San
Antonio, Texas, native, his work is personal, too. When training Hispanics new to the job market, he remembers his
immigrant grandparents, who came to Texas from Mexico at the turn of the century.

Leaving his job as an OSHA inspector, he said, was an opportunity to make a difference.

"As an OSHA inspector, you cannot change the world," Rosas said. "I don't expect to change the world, but I believe
we're making some headway into the education."

Note: Hispanic population growth

The number of Hispanics who moved to or were born in North Carolina, meanwhile, increased a whopping 393.9 percent during the '90s, to 302,237, according to the 2000 Census. In South Carolina, the Hispanic population more than tripled to 95,076. In Mecklenburg County, the number of Hispanicsgrew almost sevenfold to 44,871 people.