worker centers

A strategic response to Trump’s “ripping off the Band-Aid” to workers’ health and safety: Defense of the status quo ante is not enough

garrettbrown — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 16:15:15 +0000

A strategic response to Trump’s “ripping off the Band-Aid” to workers’ health and safety: Defense of the status quo ante is not enough

By Garrett Brown, MPH, CIH and Deeg Gold, MPH CIH

In late January, Donald Trump’s press secretary described his immigration and refugee Executive Order as “ripping off the Band-Aid” to get at immigrants. The next week, Trump issued another Executive Order on regulations and is preparing other measures to “rip off the Band-Aid” to get at worker health and safety. Our strategic response has to be more than simply defending the status quo ante; we have to rebuild the social movement that was powerful enough 50 years ago to force another right-wing Republican president, Richard Nixon, to support and sign the OSH Act in the first place.

Part of this strategic response has to be recognize that millions of workers in the United States were never covered by any Band-Aid, and that the workplace safety net was and is full of gaping holes.

Of course, the necessary tactical response is to defend the gains that have been made over those 46 years, as incomplete as they are, to the best of our ability. We should recognize the valiant efforts of David Michaels, Jordan Barab and many others at Fed OSHA over the last eight years to move the ball forward in spite of many obstacles, including those created by the Obama Administration itself.

But we also need to take into consideration the fact that for millions of workers, federal and state OSHA programs have not been able to protect them, and really have not been part of their working lives. The factors involved in this reality include:

The exclusion of millions of public sector workers under Fed OSHA;
The real-world context where millions of workers, especially immigrants but also other vulnerable workers, are too afraid, threatened and intimidated to contact OSHA no matter how unsafe and unhealthy their workplace;
Fed OSHA and state regulations of chemical exposures and other health regulations that are completely out of date, and barely enforced in any case;
Some state plans (e.g. UT, NV and NC) that were established precisely to avoid federal jurisdiction and any possibility of effective enforcement by establishing a state plan;
The lack of enforcement resources at both federal and state levels means that the “hammer of regulatory enforcement” is not nearly as effective, or scary, as the employers claim.

What’s needed is a reframing of our thinking about how to protect workers’ health and safety to rely less on government bureaucracies and their political overlords, and more on what workers and their organizations can do themselves on the shop floor, more on collaboration with environmentalists, community organizations and social justice activists; and more on the pressure that all these allies working together can exert on regulatory agencies no matter who is in charge.

The current regulatory framework for occupational safety and health came after the industrial bloodbath during World War II and the following two decades. The social movements of the 1960s included a lot of workplace organizing both within and outside of established unions, more often led by rank and file members than by union officials.

The Mine Safety and OSH Acts Acts were passed as the result of a broad social movement that united many allies, and were preceded by a wave of strikes, demonstrations and other protests in the late 1960s. The Federal Coal Mine Safety and Health Act was passed in 1969 after coal miners in West Virginia, organized by the Black Lung Association outside of the unresponsive United Mine Workers union controlled by President Tony Boyle, walked off the job and marched onto the state capitol demanding compensation.

From 1968 to 1970 the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM), and other groups in the League of Revolutionary Black Workers led wildcat walkouts over working conditions in Detroit auto plants. The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, joined by other unions such as the International Association of Machinists, mobilized their members in political campaigns, conducted strikes and other job actions at work, and joined public health advocates in lobbying for a national law to create a new enforcement agency for occupational safety and health.

Environmentalists, recognizing that pollution starts in the workplace and then moves out into the community and nature, supported “OHS” as well as “EHS” efforts. Social justice organizations recognized that the people (workers and communities) most adversely affected by unsafe and unhealthy working conditions were people of color and women.

For the first 20 years of OSHA existence, the official government regulations were matched by the creation of union health and safety departments with OHS professionals who helped raised the consciousness of their members and other working people, worked to pass more regulatory protections, and rode herd on employers and government agencies alike to meet their responsibilities to protect workers on the job.

For the last 20 years, the tide has gone in the other direction as economic crisis and globalization weakened unions, which then (mistakenly) allowed their H&S departments to become a shadow of their former selves. Also a way of thinking arose in many unions, and society at large, that workplace health and safety – “That’s OSHA job.” Workers’ health and safety became a government function to be administered by a government bureaucracy led by political appointees, with minimal participation by the affected workers.

So it is not surprising that occupational health and safety is essentially an orphan (with some notable parental exceptions) about to be set upon by the ferocious hounds of deregulation.

To defend ourselves – but to also fight for and achieve a more inclusive, more protective OHS system in the United States – we should look back 50 years and rebuild the social movement that got us this far.

Of course, the times and the context have changed. The union movement is much smaller – with 93% of private sector workers having no union protection at all – and new types of jobs (with hazards of their own, of course) that have replaced or altered the workplaces of 50 years ago. Some unions, such as the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, the Service Employee’s International Union, and the United Steel Workers are providing leadership in organized labor, as OCAW did in the past.

Although there are two dozen functioning COSH groups, at this time rank and file organizing within the unions, such as coal miners did with the Black Lung Association, has not yet emerged, despite the variety of hazards faced by today’s workforce and the desperate need to fix them.

But today we have many potential allies, and Trump’s broad assault will generate more. These include environmentalists, immigrant rights organizations, and social justice activists of many genders and colors. These also include workers’ centers and labor issue campaigns, such as “Fight for Fifteen,” which involve both organized and unorganized workers. We need to look for people in motion, especially the young, who go to work and face hazards there every day, and then are exposed to the hazards that spill out of other workplaces into their communities.

We need to promote the concept that workers’ health and safety cannot just be left to government bureaucracies, but that workers and communities acting in their own name to protect themselves, are an essential and irreplaceable part of an effective OHS/EHS system that includes government agencies and regulatory enforcement, but so much more.

As OHS professionals, we think our tasks include:

Strengthening the COSH network and building new COSH groups;
collaborating with worker organizations – unions but also workers’ centers, day laborers’ organizations and similar groups – to increase the capacity, skills and confidence of these organizations and their members in the area of occupational health and safety ; and
collaborating with environmental and community organizations to link occupational and environmental health issues and to work jointly on solutions.

In the labor context, union members concerned with workplace safety might consider:

Prioritizing again health and safety provisions in union contracts and in contract enforcement on the shop floor;
Conducting job actions of various types to win and enforce contract H&S language;
Supporting the rebuilding of the union health and safety departments for member education, contract negotiation, and political action;
Highlighting workplace H&S as an organizing theme to win new members to the unions and to strengthen the union’s own capacity to protect worker health.

There already have been successful examples of these approaches in California. After the 2012 fire at Chevron’s Richmond oil refinery, a coalition of major environmental, community and labor groups have worked together for several years to improve worker – and thereby community – safety at the state’s 15 refineries and new, stronger regulations are nearing final consideration.

Workplace health and safety has been used as a successful organizing campaign theme by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union with recycling workers in Oakland, CA, by the United Steel Workers union with car washers in Los Angeles (here, here), and by the Warehouse Worker Resource Center in Ontario, CA (here, here.)

These positive examples can be replicated elsewhere as there is no shortage of workers and communities whose health and safety are threatened on both sides of the fence line.

As the Trump Administration prepares to render Fed OSHA as ineffective as possible, state plans in place like California, Oregon and Washington have a special responsibility to move the ball forward in spite of a roll-back on a federal level. Many aspects of these state plans are already more protective than Fed OSHA, and progress can be made a state level to set the example and model a more effective federal program.

California has several characteristics that OHS activists should take advantage of – the Democratic party has the Governor’s Mansion and a super-majority of 2/3rds of the state legislature – and the power to raise funds and approve legislation to implement new programs. Moreover, all the major political leaders in the state, including the governor, have declared their “rejection of the Trump agenda” and sworn to “protect the people of California” against Trump policies.

Among the demands that can be made on these California politicians are that:

Cal/OSHA make full use of authorized funding and not “leave money on the table” when it comes to worker protection as has happened over the last 18 months (at least $6 million) at Cal/OSHA;
The Governor fill the two vacancies on the seven-member Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (vacancies have been open since December 2015), because the vacancies mean that approval of any of the important pending standards would require a near-unanimous vote;
The major workplace health regulations now in development (lead, indoor heat, workplace violence) not be gutted in the standard-setting process by industry pressure, or by a new state economic analysis requirement for “major regulations” that forces limits on the scope and impact of new regulations to stay below the monetary threshold of “major” regs to avoid the onerous and time-consuming cost-benefit analysis; and
Cal/OSHA use its expanded enforcement resources to prioritize vulnerable workers like Los Angeles garment workers or Central Valley poultry and slaughterhouse workers, and to partner with communities and worker organizations to bring lasting improvements in working conditions for all workers in California.

There is an old adage that points out that the Chinese word for “crisis” consists of two characters: “danger” and “opportunity.” In the evolving crisis our country is now experiencing, it is not difficult to see the many dangers on the horizon. But it is also important to not lose sight that there are many opportunities for uniting allies to defend our rights, to retrace our steps to protect workers, and to bring workers and communities back into the center of occupational and environmental health.

Garrett Brown is a certified industrial hygienist who worked for Cal/OSHA for 20 years as a field Compliance Safety and Health Officer and then served as Special Assistant to the Chief of the Division before retiring in 2014. He has also been the volunteer Coordinator of the Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network since 1993 and has coordinated projects in Bangladesh, Central America, China, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Mexico and Vietnam.

Deeg Gold is a certified industrial hygienist who worked for Cal/OSHA for 21 years starting as a field compliance officer, and retiring as deputy chief for health. Prior to returning to school and working at Cal/OSHA Deeg was a shop steward and rank-and-file health and safety activist in her union.

garrettbrown Wed, 02/08/2017 - 11:15

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Occupational Health & Safety

New York farmworker, worker centers sue for organizing rights: ‘This would be a huge victory’

kkrisberg — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 20:07:11 +0000

New York farmworker, worker centers sue for organizing rights: ‘This would be a huge victory’

In September 2015, New York farmworker Crispin Hernandez was fired after his employers saw him talking with local workers’ rights advocates. But instead of backing down, Hernandez filed suit against the state. And if he prevails, it could help transform the often dangerous and unjust workplace conditions that farmworkers face to put food on all of our tables.

Officially filed May 10, 2016, Hernandez v. State of New York demands that the state provide the same constitutional protections to farmworkers as it does for other workers. Right now, according to the New York state constitution, all employees have the right to organize and bargain collectively via representatives of their own choosing. However, the state’s worker retaliation protections specifically exempt farmworkers — in other words, it’s currently not illegal for employers to retaliate against farmworkers who attempt to organize for better working conditions. And that lack of protection against retaliation is in clear opposition to farmworkers’ constitutional organizing rights.

Fortunately, just hours after the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) filed Hernandez’s lawsuit, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that his administration would not fight the suit, saying in a statement: “I agree with the NYCLU that the exclusion of farm workers from the labor relations act is inconsistent with our constitutional principles, and my administration will not be defending the act in court. We will not tolerate the abuse or exploitation of workers in any industry. This clear and undeniable injustice must be corrected.” Cuomo’s statement is an encouraging sign in and of itself, said Aadhithi Padmanabhan, the NYCLU lawyer representing Hernandez and his co-plaintiffs, the Workers’ Center of Central New York and Worker Justice Center of New York.

However, this summer, the New York Farm Bureau, a lobbying group (not a state or public agency despite the official-sounding name) officially filed to intervene on the case and argue on behalf of the farmworker exemption. A decision on whether the bureau will be allowed to do so is still pending.

“This would be a huge victory,” Padmanabhan told me, referring to the possibility of the court ruling for Hernandez and the worker centers. “It would mean that New York is recognizing these workers who’ve been invisible for so long. …People like Crispin are so brave to put themselves on the line like this — it’s a huge leap for workers like him to take this kind of risk and fight for their rights. This is their victory.”

‘It was the perfect case of worker retaliation for organizing’

Hernandez’s lawsuit stems back to an incident involving one of his co-workers at Marks Farms in Lowville, New York, a large dairy farm that produces about 340,000 pounds of milk every day and generates an annual gross income of $28 million.

According to Rebecca Fuentes, lead organizer at the Workers’ Center of Central New York, which has been spearheading farmworker outreach on New York dairy farms for years, one of Hernandez’s co-workers was enjoying his day off in March 2015 when his employer asked that he report to work because the farm was short-staffed. The worker wanted his day off but he couldn’t afford to risk his employment and went in. Later that same day, an altercation between the worker and his supervisor occurred in which the worker was physically assaulted. Hernandez was working in the milking parlor that day and could hear the commotion — he ended up waiting with the injured worker while arrangements were made to get him to a hospital.

In the aftermath, Fuentes said, the workers' center helped the injured worker file official complaints with local police and OSHA. (Not surprisingly, she said, the farm blamed the worker for the incident.) A little more than a month after the incident, the Workers’ Center of Central New York as well as the Worker Justice Center of New York, along with farmworkers, organized a protest outside of Marks Farms that attracted dozens of participants and called for an end to abusive workplace conditions.

Not long after the protest, Hernandez, who had joined the Workers’ Center of Central New York in 2014, became actively involved in an effort to organize a workers committee at Marks Farms. In the meantime, however, Hernandez’s involvement with the worker center began attracting negative attention from his employers.

According to the lawsuit, Hernandez first began working at Marks Farms in April 2012 and rented housing that was also owned by his employers. At the time of the spring 2015 worker assault, Hernandez was working typical 12-hour shifts, six days a week. The lawsuit reads:

The work he performed as a milker was very intense and physically demanding. Although he was supposed to have a thirty minute meal-break during his 12-hour shift, Mr. Hernandez, like other milkers, often had less time because of the constant pressure he was under not to fall behind or damage the quality of the milk product. He also would often go the entire shift without taking a break for water or using the bathroom because he wanted to do a good job and he worried he would not be able to complete all that was required of him during his shift if he took a break that lasted even a few minutes.

In July 2015, for the very first time, Hernandez asked for an unscheduled day off. His request was granted and he used the time off to attend a workers’ center meeting. Immediately following, according to the lawsuit, Hernandez was shifted to a less desirable work assignment as a “relief” worker, filling in when fellow workers were off or on break. Then in August 2015, Fuentes traveled to the farm at the request of Hernandez and fellow workers who wanted to form a workers committee. During that meeting, workers discussed the health and safety risks they faced on the job, such as the failure of their employer to provide them with personal protective equipment.

That meeting was cut short when a Marks Farms supervisor showed up, demanding that Fuentes leave and calling the police. According to the lawsuit, the police began interrogating the workers about why Fuentes was there and if they had invited her. (Keep in mind that while the workers live in housing owned by the farm, they pay rent and have the right as tenants to invite guests into their homes.) Eventually, the police left, the meeting with Fuentes resumed and workers agreed to continue their efforts to create a workers committee at the farm. Shortly after, some of the workers dropped out of the organizing effort, but Hernandez stuck with it.

On Sept. 1, 2015, Hernandez was fired and told to move out of his home within the week. After the firing, the lawsuit states, Hernandez’s former co-workers were asked to sign a form stating they did not want Fuentes to visit their homes and were told that Fuentes was working to put the farm out of business.

“It was retaliation,” Carly Fox, a worker rights advocate with the Worker Justice Center of New York, told me. “It was the perfect case of worker retaliation for organizing.”

‘The bigger point here is building worker power’

“Without farmworkers there would not be milk, fruits or vegetables, but we are treated like slaves and worse than the cows. We want to be able to improve our working conditions without fear or intimidation. We believe our lives are important and that all human beings deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”

That’s a quote from Hernandez, whose lawsuit might finally give New York farmworkers a real opportunity to organize without fear for safer working conditions, fair wages and dignity on the job.

“It’s a huge victory for workers like Crispin,” Fuentes said of the worker-led lawsuit. “It’s been a lot of work for him — just imagine the pressure with his name on a lawsuit like this.”

According to OSHA, farm work is among the most dangerous occupations in the nation, with nearly 6,000 agricultural workers dying from work-related injuries between 2003 and 2011. That’s a fatality rate that’s seven times higher than for all other private-sector workers. About half of the country’s farmworkers are Hispanic and many are undocumented, which easily opens the door to abuse, exploitation and wage theft. New York, in particular, is home to about 80,000 to 100,000 seasonal and dairy farmworkers.

For years, Fox told me, advocates such as herself as well as workers have been calling on New York policymakers to pass the Farm Workers Fair Labor Practices Act, which would reverse farmworkers’ exemption from state labor laws and give farmworkers the right to overtime pay, guaranteed time off, and expand employer contributions to workers’ compensation and unemployment. State lawmakers have yet to enact the legislation, though both Fuentes and Fox said their organizations are continuing to push for its passage. However, if Hernandez wins his case in court and farmworkers gain formal protection from retaliation, organizing efforts may have a much better chance at securing such worker benefits directly from employers.

In particular, the lawsuit is asking the court to rule that farmworker exclusions from retaliation protections are unconstitutional — “this exemption discriminates against a historically disenfranchised group of people and violates their right to equal protection,” Padmanabhan said. If that exemption is eventually struck down, it will mean farmworkers can begin filing retaliation complaints with state oversight officials, she said.

“It’s a big deal that the governor has said he will not defend (the exemption) in court, but the real victory will be when workers like Crispin actually have access to their rights,” Padmanabhan told me.

In the event that the New York Farm Bureau is allowed to intervene in the lawsuit, she said “we’ll have a live case and we’ll have to take it from there.” The possible benefit to allowing such an intervention is that the bureau will be forced to defend the discriminatory exemption before a judge and the final ruling would be binding on the bureau, she noted.

“(The bureau) voiced its opposition to the lawsuit when we filed it, so it’s not surprising that they would try to fight it,” Padmanabhan said.

But even if Hernandez wins in court, both Fox and Fuentes said farmworkers still face an uphill battle toward safer, fairer workplaces.

“The bigger point here is building worker power — they are at the front and center of these actions,” Fox told me. “Whether there’s a union or not, workers are going to organize. So if we gain these protections, it’ll be another tool that we can use. But what’s really important is holding government accountable, pushing for new laws, pushing for new strategies. This lawsuit isn’t the end.”

To learn more about the farmworker lawsuit against New York, visit NYCLU or the Workers’ Center of Central New York. And for more on the conditions facing New York dairy farmworkers and their efforts to improve workplace conditions, read our previous coverage here.

Story update: As of Monday, Oct. 24, the New York Farm Bureau was granted permission to intervene in the Hernandez lawsuit. In a statement, the bureau said it would be filing a motion to dismiss the case.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for nearly 15 years.

kkrisberg Fri, 10/21/2016 - 16:07

Worker center success: Houston workers organize for safer conditions at insulation plant

kkrisberg — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 16:25:24 +0000

Worker center success: Houston workers organize for safer conditions at insulation plant

When Mirella Nava began her new job at Rock Wool Manufacturing Company in Houston, Texas, she had no intentions of becoming an advocate for worker safety. But when she witnessed how fellow workers were being treated and the dangerous work conditions they faced on a daily basis, she felt compelled to speak up.

Eventually, Nava and a group of Rock Wool workers — with the help of the Houston-based Fe y Justicia Worker Center — got the attention of local OSHA officials, who earlier this year cited Rock Wool Manufacturing for seven serious and two repeat violations for exposing workers to a variety of workplace hazards, including amputation risks. OSHA also cited staffing agency C & C Personnel, which provided the company with more than 50 temporary workers a day, with four serious safety violations. The case is a near perfect example of how worker centers are empowering some of the country’s most vulnerable laborers with the knowledge and means to fight for and secure safer working conditions.

“These workers were just too vulnerable to stand up by themselves,” Nava told me. “But once they see that they have support, that they’re not standing alone — it just made a huge difference.”

Hired through a staffing agency, Nava began working at Rock Wool Manufacturing in February 2014. The company, which is headquartered in Leeds, Alabama, manufactures industrial insulation — the insulation is manufactured in Alabama and sent in bulk to the Houston plant, where workers cut and ready the insulation to ship to clients. At Rock Wool, Nava was responsible for various administrative, scheduling and shipping logistics as well as taking client orders and relaying specifications to workers in the warehouse. As such, Nava was regularly in the warehouse where workers were doing the actual insulation cutting. And that’s where she said she began to notice that workers were consistently being exposed to serious safety risks and working in dangerous conditions.

During our lengthy phone interview, Nava gave me numerous examples of the conditions and incidents she witnessed at Rock Wool. Table saws with no protection guards, freezing temperatures in the winter and “hotter than hell” temperatures in the summer, broken drinking water stations, and machinery that was “always breaking down and never given proper maintenance.” She said workers often had to bring in their own water and would get yelled at if they stopped to drink water and weren’t on an official break.

One warehouse worker’s finger was cut so severely on the table saw he had to have it sewn back on. On more than one occasion, the chemical paint thinner workers used to clean off industrial glue got into a worker’s eyes. There was no eyewash station and so Nava would bring the worker to the bathroom and help him wash it out in the sink. Another worker was looking inside a machine to see why the blades had stopped moving when the door to the machine’s insides, which she said didn’t have proper latches or locks, fell on his head. He had to get stitches, she said, but he wasn’t allowed to leave work until he got the machine working again.

“It just broke my heart to see things like that,” Nava said.

Nava said she never witnessed anyone receiving safety training — “employees would come in sent by the staffing agency and thrown on the line and that was it.” Nava couldn’t stand by and say nothing. So, she spoke with the manager numerous times about the dangerous conditions.

“He said he didn’t have the money (to make the warehouse safer) and that plenty of people would be happy to do this work,” she told me.

In one instance, officials from the Alabama headquarters came to visit the plant. Nava took her chance to point out dangerous conditions in the warehouse, such as unsafe stacking practices. Just as they were talking, a forklift incident caused a pile of boxes and a palette to topple to the ground right behind her. Still, management did nothing.

Speaking up for the workers in the warehouse was creating a lot of tension between Nava and her manager. Things were getting tense, but she said the workers in the warehouse begged her not to leave. But eventually in March 2015, she lost her job at Rock Wool. After falling in the warehouse and injuring her hand, her manager said she was spending too much time out of the office going to medical appointments. He fired her.

Organizing for change: ‘Workers were ready to take every step to accomplish justice’

Immediately after being fired, Nava filed a Department of Labor complaint for unpaid wages (she eventually received the wages she had earned). And then she began searching for a way to help the workers she had been forced to leave behind. She called her local Univision station and they gave her the number to the Fe y Justicia Worker Center. Soon after, she and a group of Rock Wool workers began attending the worker center’s Monday night labor law workshops. They began learning about proper and lawful occupational health and safety standards. Working with one of the center’s trainers, Nava and the Rock Wool workers mapped out all the hazards they could remember from the warehouse.

“The workshop was a big eye-opener for all of us,” she told me. “The (trainers) pointed out all these (workplace) hazards to us that had previously seemed like normal, everyday things.”

Fe y Justicia helped the group of workers — nearly a dozen — build a formal OSHA complaint and connected them with a Spanish-speaking OSHA inspector, who met with and interviewed former Rock Wool employees as well. After an inspection at the Rock Wool plant in April 2015, the OSHA official issued the company a list of safety recommendations. (Following that inspection, workers said that management threatened them for going to OSHA. The workers filed a retaliation complaint with the local Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.)

Still, workers were worried the company wouldn’t take any action on the OSHA recommendations, said Martha Ojeda, executive director at Fe y Justicia. So that’s when the worker center rallied its supporters and drove its Justice Bus to the plant site to demand safer conditions in person. About 60 people came out in support.

“The workers were ready to take every step to accomplish justice,” Ojeda told me. “Everyone was committed.”

A few months later in August, OSHA officially cited Rock Wool for seven serious and two repeat violations, and cited staffing agency C & C Personnel for four serious violations, including failing to establish an energy control program to disable potentially hazardous machinery. (Serious violations are those in which the working conditions could have resulted in serious injury or death.) The agency proposed penalties of $64,350 for Rock Wool and $21,600 for C & C Personnel. Among the serious violations against Rock Wool include not providing adequate employee training on energy control programs, lack of proper machine guarding, and having equipment in damp and wet locations. According to an informal settlement agreement with OSHA, Rock Wool and C & C Personnel have agreed to the proposed penalties.

Joann Figueroa, OSHA’s area director in the Houston North office, told me the agency also looked into the allegations of dust exposure. In this case, cutting rock wool insulation generally results in mineral fiber dust. However, OSHA has no specific permissible exposure limit for this type of dust, relying on its general particulate exposure standard instead. Figueroa said the agency did take samples to test for respirable dust and did not get an overexposure result. (It’s important to note here than on many occasions, federal OSHA Administrator David Michaels has said OSHA chemical exposure standards are outdated and so employers should not necessarily rely on the standards to keep workers safe.)

In regard to citing the temporary staffing agency in this case, Figueroa said OSHA considers worker safety a “joint responsibility” between both the staffing agency and the host employer. With temporary staffing arrangements becoming much more common in the workplace, she said OSHA is hoping to communicate the message that all of the employers involved need to ensure compliance with OSHA standards.

“A temp worker, at times, is not treated or viewed as being the same as a permanent employee in the same workplace, although OSHA strongly believes they should be treated the same way,” she told me. “Depending on the circumstances…they could be more vulnerable and potentially not as well trained.”

Figueroa also noted how important worker centers are in helping OSHA connect with hard-to-reach workers.

“It’s a beneficial relationship,” she said. “We’re able to reach workers we might not have been able to reach in the past and educate them on their rights.”

Back at Fe y Justicia, Ojeda said the worker center will continue to track and monitor safety conditions at Rock Wool Manufacturing. She noted that in Texas, where employers aren’t required to have workers’ compensation insurance and there is no state occupational health and safety agency, worker centers are critical to protecting the most vulnerable workers.

“This was a big victory,” Ojeda told me. “It gave workers the confidence that they have rights and they can help enforce them.”

For Nava, the experience has turned her into a devoted volunteer at Fe y Justicia, where she hopes to soon become a certified health and safety trainer.

“We just need to stop being afraid,” she said. “We need to start speaking up and we need to let the community know that there are centers that exist that will help you and hold your hand step by step. There’s nothing wrong with looking for that help or seeking that support.”

Visit Fe y Justicia to learn more about their mission, work and success.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Fri, 10/23/2015 - 12:25

New York dairy farm workers organize for justice: ‘Law or no law, we are going to organize’

kkrisberg — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 17:39:59 +0000

New York dairy farm workers organize for justice: ‘Law or no law, we are going to organize’

“Yes, you can use my name because it doesn’t matter. They have already done everything they can do to me.”

Those are words from Eliceo, a former dairy farm worker in upstate New York. Earlier this year, Eliceo, 36, decided to speak up and share his story with local advocates who are tirelessly working to improve conditions on New York dairy farms and end persistent reports of workplace safety violations, preventable work-related injuries, wage theft, exploitation and in some cases, worker deaths. His story of dangerous farm conditions, inadequate to nonexistent safety training and an employer apathetic to his medical needs is unfortunately not uncommon. In fact, Carly Fox, an organizer at the Worker Justice Center of New York who connected Eliceo with a workers’ compensation lawyer, tells me it’s not unusual for farmworkers to say that employers are more concerned with the health and safety of their cows than the health and safety of their workers.

“Greek yogurt has increased demand for dairy and the state is excited about it and celebrating its growth, but the invisibility of the Latino workplace is really problematic,” said Fox, who’s part of a larger coalition working to organize dairy farm workers and push policy-makers to intervene on behalf of worker safety. “It’s such a successful industry right now and production is increasing so fast, but we’re not giving credit as to why. These workers work incredible hours, they’re afraid of getting fired and their immigration status is used to keep them in fear. …It’s a very troubled industry that we’re celebrating. This isn’t dignified work. It’s substandard.”

In New York state, dairy production is booming, with much of it driven by consumer demand for Greek yogurt. According to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, while the number of New York dairy farms during the past few decades has decreased, the amount of milk produced has gone up by the billions of pounds, resulting in an increase in hiring outside labor. On the surface, the situation seems like a bright spot in a struggling economy. But underneath the idyllic stereotype of the family farm, workers are increasingly coming forward to report hazardous working conditions, wage violations and employer neglect. In response, dairy farm workers in partnership with local worker advocates have begun organizing to improve working conditions, strengthen government oversight and shed light on a situation that is hardly idyllic at all.

“The workers themselves are saying we deserve better — they're saying we’re working in horrible conditions and we deserve dignity,” Fox told me.

As part of their efforts to bring visibility to the problem, Fox and fellow advocates are collecting the stories of New York’s dairy farm workers, a large proportion of whom are immigrants unaware of their labor rights and fearful of retaliation for speaking out or demanding medical care for injuries sustained on the job. While some data report that New York dairy farms employ about 2,000 Hispanic workers, Fox says those numbers are terribly outdated. She and her colleagues estimate it’s much higher — probably between 5,000 and 10,000. One of those workers is Eliceo, 35, who came to the United States in 1996, working on chicken farms and in construction in North Carolina before moving to New York in 2009 and finding work within the state’s booming dairy sector.

In 2012, Eliceo began working at a large dairy farm about an hour outside of Rochester. He had multiple job duties, taking care of the animals, cleaning stalls and milking cows. He worked eight hours a day, six days a week — and he and his fellow workers were constantly working, milking upward of 4,000 cows within an eight-hour shift. In February 2013, having already been at the farm for about five months, a bull that was among a group of milking cows attacked Eliceo as he was herding cows from the barn into the milking parlor. He said his employers never alerted him that he may encounter bulls on the job, though he soon realized the fact for himself, and he never received training on how to protect himself from an attack. The injuries Eliceo sustained during the incident affect him until this day.

“(The bull) charged me and hit me in the right foot and I fell," he told a worker advocate. "Then he hit me from behind. In that moment, I passed out and when I came to the bull was still attacking me. I screamed for help. There were so many cows and I was thrown to the ground. My co-workers couldn’t see where I was even though I was yelling. After, the same animal attacked me outside. I managed to get up and get myself out of there. I barely escaped because if I hadn’t, he would have killed me.”

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Eliceo couldn’t lift his arm or walk, there were bruises all over his body from the bull's multiple hits. Neither his employer nor supervisor offered to take him to receive medical care. The next morning, Eliceo found his own ride to the hospital, though his supervisor had expected him back at work and was upset at having to find someone to fill in. Eliceo eventually saw a specialist, who recommended he rest for a week to let his injuries heal and gave him a note ordering him not to return to work without a doctor’s authorization. Eliceo says he gave the note to his supervisor, who said it was invalid, fired Eliceo and kicked him out of the house where he was living. (Farms often provide worker housing, which has a long history of substandard, unhealthy conditions.)

Fortunately, Eliceo had met Fox prior to being evicted from his house. Fox connected him with La Casa, a local organization that provides transitional housing for migrant farmworkers, where Eliceo stayed for three months and recuperated from his injuries. Still, Eliceo wasn’t able to work for a year and continues to suffer from chronic pain that affects his ability to make a living. He’s currently working with a lawyer to access workers’ compensation.

“We don’t know that there are people who advocate for us,” he said. “We are made blind to the truth, as if our eyes were closed. We think that we don’t have any support or the same rights as everyone else. If I hadn’t met (Fox), I would have gone back to Mexico hurt. The first thing we do is take off running for Mexico. What happened to me was incredible, that I crossed paths with (Fox). Now I know my rights, thanks to (Fox).”

Where’s OSHA?

Agriculture is among the most dangerous industries in the nation, with a fatality rate nearly seven times higher than for workers in the overall private sector. In the dairy sector, in particular, hours are typically long and wages are typically low. According to the National Center for Farmworker Health, a survey of Hispanic dairy farm workers in New York found that most worked an average of 62 hours a week for an average wage of $7.51 per hour. Nationwide, dairy workers experience a higher occupational injury and illness rate than other workers in the private sector and on New York dairy farms alone, there have been 55 fatalities since 2006. However, OSHA’s ability to enforce safer working conditions is filled with gaps.

Typically, OSHA’s presence on dairy farms is in responding to reports of fatalities, not in preventing them from happening in the first place. For example, a 2013 regional OSHA notice listed four completed fatality inspections since 2007: a worker run over by a feed truck, a worker asphyxiated by methane, a worker crushed by cows and a worker struck by the bucket of a skid steer. This major gap in OSHA oversight is a top priority for the recently launched New York State Dairy Workers Organizing Campaign, which is aimed at improving conditions on New York’s dairy farms and empowering workers to make a difference.

“We want to create a movement of workers who are not afraid to say ‘we need laws, we need protection,’” said Rebecca Fuentes, a lead organizer with the Workers’ Center of Central New York. “We're finding more and more in interviews that workers want to band together.”

Last year and in response to the stories advocates were hearing during farmworker education and training outreach, the Workers’ Center of Central New York in partnership with the Worker Justice Center of New York launched the statewide campaign to raise awareness about the injustices dairy farm workers face and to strengthen OSHA oversight. Listening to Fox and Fuentes talk about the conditions and dangers dairy farm workers face on a daily basis, it’s shocking to realize that OSHA has such restricted jurisdiction — currently, dairy farms with 10 or fewer employees are completely exempt from OSHA regulations unless the farm operates a temporary labor camp.

Fox tells me that dairy farm workers face a litany of harmful and stressful working conditions: dangerous animals, hazardous chemicals, old machinery, extreme temperatures and little access to protective equipment and safety training. Workers often work long, irregular hours, sometimes with no break at all. The day I spoke with Fox she had just interviewed a worker who reported working six hours on, six hours off on a continuing basis for 15 months with only one full day away from work. Most of the workers Fox and Fuentes work with are Hispanic and speak little English, making them highly vulnerable to workplace abuses. In addition, dairy farm workers often live in migrant housing, which means their employer is also their landlord.

“This is the stuff we hear all the time,” Fox said. “Not every farm is like that, sometimes you hear really good things. But at the end of the day, it’s an industry that’s basically unregulated.”

As part of their organizing efforts, advocates and workers began meeting with local OSHA officials and pushing for a “Local Emphasis Program,” an enforcement strategy designed and implemented at the regional level to address hazards or industries that pose a particular risk to workers in the office's jurisdiction. The strategy was a success, with OSHA agreeing to launch random, unannounced inspections on New York dairy farms with more than 10 employees beginning this past July. Unfortunately, the inspection program ended in September, though advocates hope the effort will be renewed. Still, OSHA’s action made a difference. Fox said that since the OSHA announcement, she’s heard from workers who report receiving safety training for the first time.

In addition to the OSHA success, the farmworker campaign also organized an 11-day speaking tour in April that visited churches, community centers and universities across the state. The tour, which made 23 stops, was organized to raise awareness among the public, broaden support for worker rights and cultivate new partnerships. The tour’s featured speaker was Jose Cañas, an immigrant farmworker who has worked on upstate dairy farms for more than three years and who witnessed as well as experienced work-related injury and illness. Fox reports that speaking out in public was an empowering experience for farmworkers — “putting a face to this problem is radical in and of itself,” she said.

“We wanted to educate people that health and safety is a right not only for dairy workers, but for all workers,” Fuentes told me.

One of those workers is “Jorge” (he asked me not to use his real name), 36, who's been working on a dairy farm in upstate New York for nearly 12 years. He’s a milker, working seven days a week — noon to 6 p.m. four days a week and 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. three days a week. He and his co-workers milk 850 cows in six hours and he doesn’t get a break during his shifts. (Fox, who translated the interview for me, tells me that’s normal.) Seven years ago during one of his shifts, a forklift hit him in the head, splitting his forehead open. When he regained consciousness, he was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, where he received 12 stitches. His employer took him back to the farm, where Jorge lived in farmworker housing, the same day and asked him to start working again just two days later.

For a month, Jorge tells me, his head felt numb — “I couldn’t feel my head.” His employer had said he would take Jorge back to the doctor to have the stitches removed; instead, the employer’s wife removed the stitches and Jorge was never taken for follow-up care. Seven years later, Jorge says he still has problems with his left ear — he doesn’t hear as well — and struggles with chronic headaches.

Jorge tells me he’s never received any workplace safety training, even though he’s exposed to chemicals on the job. In fact, he says when management is handling the chemicals, they’re wearing protective gear — “but for us, they just give us gloves,” he said.

“We are also human,” Jorge tells me. “Just because we’re undocumented doesn’t mean we don’t have rights. We are equal. …We came just to work, we didn’t come to take anyone’s job. We see that Americans don’t want to do the work we’re doing. Please don’t forget about us.”

Moving forward, Fox, Fuentes and their colleagues will continue to help workers organize, lodge formal complaints with OSHA, recover stolen wages and access workers’ compensation. They’re also working to collect 100 interviews from 100 different workers and develop a survey instrument tool they hope to eventually use to grow the worker movement and foster worker leaders.

“Law or no law, we are going to organize and the workers will become a movement.” Fuentes said.

To learn more about the New York State Dairy Workers Organizing Campaign, visit the Workers' Center of Central New York.

(Special thanks to Carly Fox who connected me with workers and translated interviews.)

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Fri, 10/10/2014 - 13:39

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Worker victory in Houston: City passes ordinance punishing wage theft

kkrisberg — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 13:56:05 +0000

Worker victory in Houston: City passes ordinance punishing wage theft

This week, Houston became only the second major city in the U.S. South to pass a law to prevent and punish wage theft. It’s a major victory for all workers, but it’s especially significant for the city’s low-wage workers, who lose an estimated $753.2 million every year because of wage theft.

Passed unanimously by the Houston City Council on Wednesday, the new wage theft ordinance provides workers with a formal process to lodge wage theft complaints and puts in place real penalties for employers convicted of stealing workers’ wages. Businesses convicted of wage theft — either civilly or criminally — will be listed in a publicly accessible city database and will become ineligible for city contracts or subcontracts. In addition, any employer with a criminal conviction of wage theft won’t be able to receive occupational permits and licenses. The ordinance, which automatically went into effect, is the first such measure in Texas. Miami-Dade County was the first major southern metropolis to pass a wage theft ordinance.

“At the deepest level, this affirms that any Houston resident does have the right to participate in the political process and help determine how their city runs,” said Laura Perez-Boston, executive director of Houston’s Fe y Justicia Worker Center (Faith and Justice Worker Center), which spearheads the local Down With Wage Theft campaign and whose worker members rallied and testified in support of the ordinance. “What this victory means is that if you’re committed to a vision for change and to justice, just don’t give up. We can win.”

Two years in the making, the ordinance is an encouraging example of community-driven change. Led by Fe y Justicia and its partners, workers spoke out at community forums, organized rallies and marches, and met with local officials — “it took a lot of work in the streets to earn our seat at the table,” Perez-Boston told me. In fact, the employer penalties and language included in the new ordinance came directly from conversations with workers who had experienced wage theft, she said.

With such an ordinance in place, Perez-Boston said she hopes more workers will feel safe coming forward to report wage theft. The ordinance will also boost the worker center’s efforts to recover stolen wages. Now, when center staff send letters to employers regarding a wage theft complaint, they can use the new ordinance to get their attention. The Down With Wage Theft coalition will be working closely with the city to make sure the ordinance is effectively implemented and to monitor the results, said Jessica Alvarenga, communications coordinator for the campaign. In addition, Fe y Justicia will continue to assist low-wage workers in recovering stolen wages on their own.

“Given that this was a two-year campaign, first we want to celebrate,” Alvarenga told me. “We want to make sure this law goes into effect correctly before we start pushing for more. This is just the first step of many steps for workers.”

As Perez-Boston said: “We want to make sure it’s a living, breathing protection for justice.”

For 25-year-old Houston resident Adalinda Guajardo, the wage theft ordinance is a particularly personal victory. Three years ago, her father, a truck driver, was hired to transport milk from Houston to destinations around Texas. Unfortunately, the employer never paid him the more than $2,300 he was owed. Guajardo’s father was the sole income earner for the family and the missing wages had a devastating result — they weren’t able to pay for rent, utilities, her college tuition or her mother’s diabetes medication.

“At first, we didn’t know what to do, we were in shock,” she told me. “We felt humiliated.”

Eventually, Guajardo and her family went to the Fe y Justicia Worker Center for help in recovering the wages. Unfortunately, they’ve only been able to recover about $40 so far, but in the process they became strong supporters of the Down With Wage Theft campaign. In fact, Guajardo was among residents who testified before the City Council.

“I finally feel like there’ll be some justice,” she said. “If you’re a victim of wage theft, speak up, don’t be afraid. Wage theft is a crime and it deserves to be punished.”

According to a 2012 report from Fe y Justicia (which was then known as the Houston Interfaith Worker Justice Center), more than 100 wage and hour violations happen in Houston every week. For example, just this week a Houston-based commercial maintenance company agreed to pay more than $273,000 in back wages to 266 janitors after a federal investigation. Nationwide, 68 percent of low-wage workers surveyed by the National Employment Law Project reported experiencing wage violations in the previous week.

To learn more about Houston’s wage theft ordinance, visit http://downwithwagetheft.org. And read our previous coverage of Houston’s worker movement here.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Fri, 11/22/2013 - 08:56

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Fe y Justicia Worker Center

Really? Industry group launches campaign against worker centers, low-wage workers

kkrisberg — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 13:02:19 +0000

Really? Industry group launches campaign against worker centers, low-wage workers

In their efforts to protect the most vulnerable workers from illegal workplace practices and conditions, worker centers have now attracted the million-dollar ire of formidable anti-union forces. And while advocates say it's a sign of worker centers' success, it's still a worrisome trend that's made it all the way to the halls of Congress.

In late July, a full-page ad ran in the Wall Street Journal accusing worker centers of being fronts for labor unions. The ad was paid for by a group calling itself the Center for Union Facts, a nonprofit with a $3 million-plus budget run by industry lobbyist Richard Berman. In announcing the ad, the center's blog described worker centers as "organized labor’s latest scheme to unionize workers without having to comply with federal labor laws." In fact, the Center for Union Facts also unveiled a new website, www.workercenters.com, which calls on employees to report worker centers for harassment.

On top of the media and Internet campaign, some members of Congress have unfortunately jumped on the issue as well. In July, U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., chairman of the Committee on Education and Workforce, and U.S. Rep. David Roe, R-Tenn., chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions, wrote to Labor Secretary Thomas Perez asking the agency to investigate whether worker centers should be subject to requirements of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, which grants certain rights to union members while requiring regular reporting from their unions. In their letter, the House members specifically name groups such as Korean Worker Immigrant Advocates, the Retail Action Project, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Fast Food Forward. They write that "in the last decade, the line between so-called 'worker centers' and labor organizations has blurred. Today, many of these 'worker centers' are dealing with employers directly on behalf of employees."

On the surface, the anti-worker tactics seem like just another way to attack labor unions, which are certainly no stranger to confrontations with big business. But worker centers aren't labor unions — they don't bargain collectively, they don't have legal authority to represent workers, they don't benefit from the legal protections that unions do, and employers aren't legally compelled to engage with them.

Worker centers are community-based organizations that help low-wage and often immigrant workers fight illegal workplace abuses, such as wage theft or OSHA violations, and organize community actions to hold employers accountable to the law and or call for policy improvements. Many also provide social services, such as language and computer classes.

“We’re just going to continue doing what we’re doing”

To Jeff Newton, membership and communications coordinator at the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH), the media campaign is the "biggest sign so far that (worker centers) are a force to be reckoned with, that we're becoming effective to a point that they really had to sit down and get organized to counter our successes." Newton noted that as union strength has declined so have average wages; however, some worker centers have been launching successful living wage campaigns and "industry is attempting to snip that in the bud."

Like worker centers around the nation, the MassCOSH worker center helps hundreds of low-wage immigrant workers every year learn about their rights and become leaders in their communities. In just the past eight months, the center has helped workers recoup $45,000 in wages they were owed, Newton reported.

"They only know how to deal with unions and so they think they can attacks us as unions," Newton told me. "But we're not a union, and they'll have a much harder time trying to pigeonhole us to get the public to look negatively on worker centers. ...We're just going to continue to do what we're doing and through our work show that we're not a vehicle to line union leaders' pockets."

Tom O'Connor, executive director of National COSH, told me he thinks the anti-worker center campaign will ultimately backfire.

"Far from being high-paid union operatives, the people working at these worker centers are just people dedicated to getting a fair deal, fair wages and safe working conditions for workers, and I don't think they have anything to fear from having more light shed on them," O'Connor said. "In fact, I think it might help them."

In Austin, Texas, at the Workers Defense Project (which was recently highlighted in the New York Times for its success in advocating for low-wage workers), Greg Casar told me he's not surprised at the new opposition — "there are people vested in keeping working conditions the way they are and in keeping wages low." Casar, the project's business liaison, noted that as worker centers are fundamentally different from unions, he doesn't see how federal union law can be applied. During the past decade, the Workers Defense Project has helped workers recover nearly $900,000 in wages they were owed but not paid and is a critical player in improving working and safety conditions for the city's construction workers.

"We let the public know who's breaking the law and who's not abiding by community standards and values," Casar said. "Worker centers aren't a scary thing. They're just another iteration of communities getting together trying to solve community problems."

In Chicago, the Arise Worker Center was specifically named on workercenters.com as a union front group. Adam Kader, director of the Arise Chicago Worker Center, called it a "pretty unsavory move for industry to take." In regard to the Arise center being a union, Kader said employers would certainly challenge the center legally if it were engaging in union activities. He noted that the center doesn't negotiate collective bargaining agreements and doesn't have the power to enforce the voluntary agreements employers make with individual workers. Like other worker centers, Arise trains workers to confront issues such as wage theft and unsafe working conditions, and has helped low-wage workers recover millions in unpaid wages and compensation for other workplace abuses.

"These are workers that generally don't wield any power in society...so for powerful industry groups to make allegations, to me it constitutes a form of bullying," Kader told me.

When I asked Kader if he took the attacks as more of a compliment — a sign of worker center success — he quickly said he didn't want to be "glib" about the opposition campaign. While it speaks to the fact that worker centers are making a difference, he said it's still "disrespectful,” and “to see some elected officials willing to sign their names to this is more sad and disappointing than flattering." Kader also said the opposition "rightly sees us as brothers and sisters of labor unions and we're unapologetic in supporting low-wage workers in knowing their rights about joining unions."

"I think the best way to respond and push back is simply to keep doing the work we're always doing," he said.

To read more about the anti-worker center campaign, visit www.coshnetwork.org/first-they-came.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Fri, 08/16/2013 - 09:02

I guess the real beef is this: contact with workers centers is gonna make workers think about organizing unions. OMG!

It's kind of like conservatives worrying that sex education in schools is gonna make teenagers think about sex.

The same response applies: Get over it, people. It's gonna happen anyway. It's in our nature. And it's good for us! Only difference is, I see no point in suggesting young workers think about postponing unions till they're emotionally ready (g)

Report: Treating workers fairly, maintaining safe workplaces good for the bottom line

kkrisberg — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 12:40:17 +0000

Report: Treating workers fairly, maintaining safe workplaces good for the bottom line

Fair working standards for construction workers and financial profit for developers aren't incompatible, according to a new report from Texas' Workers Defense Project. In fact, consumers are actually willing to pay more to live in places built on principles of safety, economic justice and dignity.

Released this week in collaboration with the University of Texas' Center for Sustainable Development, "Green Jobs for Downtown Austin: Exploring the Consumer Market for Sustainable Buildings" studied consumer attitudes toward sustainable construction jobs and explored the market for certification via the Workers Defense Project's Premier Community Builders program. With the help of independent monitors, Premier Community Builders certifies new developments as sustainable for workers, which means developers pay a living wage, provide safe working conditions and worker training, and offer workers compensation insurance.

Greg Casar, business liaison at the Austin-based Workers Defense Project, noted that when developers decide to limit their environmental impacts, the associated costs of going green are often quickly offset by producing a higher quality building and attracting consumers for whom environmental sustainability is important. In turn, Casar and his colleagues wondered if the same would be true for developers who create quality construction jobs.

"Consumers, especially those in Austin, value social responsibility," Casar told me. "We wanted to understand quantitatively just how much consumers did care (about sustainable jobs), and we found out that they really did."

To gather their findings, researchers collected nearly 300 surveys from downtown residents of mixed-use buildings and tourists staying in downtown hotels, and conducted six focus groups with downtown residents, real estate professionals and event planners. They found that nearly 69 percent of residents and a little more than 67 percent of tourists were indeed willing to pay more to stay in buildings certified by the Premier Community Builders program.

Also, 46 percent of residents and 56 percent of tourists said they would feel "proud" to "very proud" to stay in a certified building. And 43 percent of residents said it was "unlikely" to "very unlikely" they would buy a home if they knew the law had been broken during its construction. Fifty-eight percent of survey respondents said they would trust independent monitors over self-regulation as well as industry or government regulation to ensure workers are being treated fairly. Both real estate professionals and event planners said Premier Community Builders certification could lead to new marketing opportunities and enhanced prestige.

In fact, while there were some differences among survey respondents, people across the political spectrum and with varying levels of education were willing to pay more to stay in certified buildings. In the report's recommendations, authors Casar, Haley Collins, Alan Garcia, Angie Pastorek, Jennifer Scott, Cayce Smith and Cristina Tzintzún write:

Downtown residents want to ensure they are making a good, long-term investment when purchasing downtown — and quality of construction is a major factor in making that determination. Consumers view worker treatment as a good indicator of quality craftsmanship and they indicate a willingness to do the research necessary to determine the best place to invest their dollars. Simply stated by one downtown resident, "fair labor certification to me means that it's gonna be quality." Developers should emphasize to consumers that (Premier Community Builders) certification means a higher quality product.

"(Our program) creates a system where those folks who are doing the right thing can be recognized and use their certification to market themselves and differentiate themselves," Casar said. "Before we did the survey we couldn't say that for sure, but now we have the hard data to prove it."

The report also notes that certification of fair practices has been a boon to other industries and businesses as well. For example, authors cited that at Starbucks, sales of fair trade products grew 12 percent between 2010 and 2011 worldwide, and growth in such sales earned more than one million farmers in 66 countries $83 million.

Jeff Wacker, an engineer with the Green Building Commercial Program at Austin Energy, said the Workers Defense Project's efforts to create better jobs fits in perfectly with the triple bottom line of sustainability: environment, economy and equity. Austin Energy has been partnering with the project for a couple years now, and developers in Austin can earn one point toward their green building rating if they participate in the Premier Community Builders program.

"What we're in the middle of is a more holistic way of assessing value and success," Wacker told me. "Buildings built with fair labor practices are providing more value than ones that are not, and that's an exciting message."

Wacker said he and his colleagues at Austin Energy will use the new survey results to council developers on the value of collaborating with Workers Defense Project — "it's an arrow in our quiver...it's something we can point at to say 'this will be positive for you.'" He also noted that he doesn't think the survey results are necessarily unique to Austin, although the city might be considered an early adopter of a "new way of thinking."

"We as people are becoming more empowered to not accept that there's just one way that things are done," Wacker said. "I'm excited to see this study...I think that being on the front edge of this style of thinking can help bring others along a lot faster."

The Premier Community Builders program addresses serious issues within the state's construction industry and particularly in Austin, which is experiencing an enormous boon in growth and development. Today, Texas is home to the highest construction worker fatality rate in the country, and one in five workers in Austin said they've suffered a workplace injury that required medical attention. Also, 22 percent of Austin construction workers report not being paid for their work and more than half of workers live in poverty.

For more about Workers Defense Project or to download a full copy of their recent report on consumer attitudes, click here. And read our previous coverage of the Premier Community Builders program here.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Fri, 08/02/2013 - 08:40

Study: Peer-to-peer training can improve safety, knowledge among Hispanic construction workers

lborkowski — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:35:09 +0000

Study: Peer-to-peer training can improve safety, knowledge among Hispanic construction workers

by Kim Krisberg

Eric Rodriguez and his colleagues at the Latino Union of Chicago quite literally meet workers where they're at — on the city's street corners. Many of the day laborers who gather there during the morning hours are hired to work construction at residential housing sites. Work arrangements are hardly formal, to say the least, and day laborers are frequently subjected to unnecessary and illegal dangers on the job. Unfortunately, worker safety is often kicked to the curb in the street corner marketplace.

For years, Rodriguez, who started as an organizer and is now the union's executive director, heard stories about the high rate of injuries among construction day laborers, from the minor to the extreme. And research shows that foreign-born and Hispanic construction workers experience disproportionate rates of injury and death at the workplace. Safety training was desperately needed, Rodriguez said, but providing adequate training to such an informalized network of workers with diverse backgrounds and educational levels was tricky.

When Rodriguez was an organizer in the early 2000s, even reaching out to OSHA for construction safety training was of little help — the agency didn't have instructors fluent in Spanish, had little in the way of Spanish-language materials and wasn't familiar with the Spanish terminology that would resonate with Hispanic day laborers, Rodriguez said. There was an enormous training gap that OSHA simply couldn't fill.

"It was really about taking an old practice that was created decades ago by OSHA and creating something more adaptable to the realities on the ground," Rodriguez told me.

Around the same time the Latino Union was working to improve safety standards, occupational health and safety researchers at the University of Illinois-Chicago wanted to get a better handle on safety and injury statistics among Hispanic construction workers. It was a mutually beneficial relationship and both groups, along with other area worker centers and advocates, came together to develop a safety curriculum that combines leadership development with the complete participation of workers.

They eventually turned to a safety curriculum developed by researchers at Rutgers University Occupational Training and Education Consortium and advocates at New Labor of New Jersey. The Spanish-language curriculum is a modified 10-hour health and safety OSHA training that takes a "popular education" approach, which facilitates the teaching of technical themes to any type of audience regardless of educational backgrounds. According to Rodriguez, the innovative curriculum "respects the actual experience of workers, instead of treating them as if they know nothing...it's no longer just an instructor talking to an audience, it's more of a two-way street."

But before bringing it to Chicago's day laborers, Rodriguez and his colleagues wanted to give it more of a "Chicago flavor." They added more photos and illustrations and made it as interactive as possible.

"It was so interactive and so inclusive of participants, it truly evolved into a great piece of curriculum at the end," he said.

And it worked.

From workers for workers

In a new study, researchers found that the curriculum adapted by Rodriguez and colleagues was indeed effective at improving safety knowledge among low-wage, low-literacy Hispanic construction workers. The study, published online in late March in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, found that the modified OSHA 10-hour curriculum delivered within a peer-to-peer format — in other words, worker leaders were trained to provide the training to fellow workers — resulted in improved safety knowledge, hazards identification and self-efficacy as well as sustainable health and safety activities.

"Adults learn best from each other and from doing," said study co-author Emily Ahonen, an assistant professor in the Departments of Epidemiology and Environmental Health Science at Indiana University. "It was very hands-on training and involved peers as experts...and that style was very much in line with how worker centers already conduct their activities. It was very synergistic."

Study researchers partnered with eight worker centers in seven cities to train worker leaders to deliver the safety curriculum, eventually resulting in 32 worker leaders training hundreds of fellow construction workers over three years. Training sessions took place on the weekends, were highly participatory in nature, and included the "presence and input" of OSHA-authorized trainers and sometimes an OSHA investigator.

The results? Nearly 450 workers participated in the two-day trainings and earned OSHA's 10-hour certification card, and an additional 17 workers came to only one day of training. Trainees were mostly male and born in Mexico; only one-third reported speaking English well or very well; and 61 percent had less than a high school education. Among 270 participants during year three of the training, nearly 36 percent reported a work-related injury in the prior year. Interestingly, a great number of workers reported having received health and safety training in English, even though they spoke little or no English. Study authors Rodriguez, Ahonen, Linda Forst, Joseph Zanoni, Alfreda Holloway-Beth, Michele Oschner, Louis Kimmel, Carmen Martino, Adam Kader, Elisa Ringholm and Rosemary Sokas wrote:

At one meeting with (worker leaders), one pulled out a billfold with six OSHA 10-hr cards that he had been issued in English courses and reported that his co-workers — non-English speaking roofers — had been required to sit through English language courses and had received OSHA 10-hr cards as well.

Training participants reported significant gains in knowledge on how to prevent falls, the impact of "grounding" to reduce electrical shock risk and how to recognize worksite hazards. The new knowledge stuck as well. In a three-month follow-up call, workers said they "more critically assessed worksites, working more slowly and deliberately, and they reported greater concern for fellow workers. Many also reported having increased confidence to address hazards with supervisors."

Bringing health and safety front and center

The study also found that many worker centers said the experience helped them realize that occupational health and safety is "part of the larger goal of worker/human rights" and that the safety training helped them build leadership among workers, recruit new members and build a broader worker movement.

"It's not that health and safety weren't on their radars...but it was now clearer how safety is central to social justice and worker justice," Ahonen told me. "Quite frankly, health and safety are things that if not right in front of you will often take a back seat to more immediate human needs, like income. Not being paid for work is so immediate that it's a logical place for worker centers to focus their efforts."

Ahonen noted that none of the researchers realized just how far beyond the classroom walls the training would go.

"It was truly multi-layered dissemination in the end," she said. "The amount of workers reached and the levels of empowerment gained from an organizing perspective is more than what we had hoped for. Workers clearly saw what their roles at their worksites could be now — it was incredible to watch."

Ahonen reported that worker centers involved in the study hope to continue such health and safety work, though sustainability can be a challenge.

Study co-author Adam Kader said the trainings had a big impact on confidence and feelings of empowerment among workers at the Arise Chicago Worker Center. Kader, who directs the Arise Worker Center, said that while it's true that occupational health and safety haven't always been at the forefront of the worker center movement, it's a good bet that the same employers who are stealing wages are also forgoing safety. He said health and safety are now a regular part of the conversation at Arise.

"Wage theft can be easier to grasp and sadly, many workers might just think (hazardous work conditions) are part of the job," Kader told me. "But I think we can reach more workers with multiple messages. We're the ones in contact with these workers, so if we're not talking about health and safety, I don't know who will."

Building on the study experience and lessons learned from construction workers, Kader said Arise is now working with a graduate student to develop a mini safety curriculum for car wash workers, who face a number of hazardous conditions and exposures at work.

Rodriguez at Latino Union of Chicago noted that simply the act of putting workers in the role of trainers was "pioneering." And OSHA's taken notice as well, awarding grant funds to the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, of which the Latino Union is a member, to continue the health and safety training model.

Today, Rodriguez said "even the culture on the street corner is changing." Day laborers are now talking about safety on the job, he said, and organizers are bringing aspects of the training curriculum directly to the street corner. The goal doesn't always have to be OSHA certification, Rodriguez noted, because even a little information can prevent an injury on the job.

"It all starts with a conversation," he said.

To request a fully copy of the safety training study, click here.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

lborkowski Fri, 04/19/2013 - 10:35

Cracking down on deadbeat bosses: Wage theft victory a milestone in Chicago's worker center movement

lborkowski — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:08:57 +0000

Cracking down on deadbeat bosses: Wage theft victory a milestone in Chicago's worker center movement

by Kim Krisberg

For Angel Nava, Chicago's newly adopted wage theft ordinance is particularly personal.

Until recently, Nava had worked at the same car wash business in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood for 14 years. The 55-year-old employee did it all — washing, detailing, buffing — for about 50 hours each week. Then, his boss decided to stop paying overtime.

In fact, Nava didn't receive the overtime he was owed for the last four years he worked at the car wash. He told me (though a translator) that none of his co-workers were receiving overtime either — "everyone was very upset." Nava said he knew his employer was acting illegally, but he didn't know how to file a Department of Labor complaint or know of any community group that could help him fight for his wages. Eventually he was referred to the Arise Chicago Worker Center.

With the Worker Center's help, the Department of Labor launched an investigation, and Nava eventually received a check for $1,300 — not nearly what he was owed, but it was something. Because of the wage theft experience, Nava quit his longtime job and now works for a different car wash making $7 an hour, which is above minimum wage for tipped employees in Illinois. (Employers must pay tipped workers $4.95 per hour, and tips are expected to bring the workers’ earnings to the state minimum wage of $8.25.)

"I don't think I would have been able to do it without Arise," said Nava, who's been a Worker Center member for two years now. "If we had approached the boss on our own, we wouldn't have ever been paid...I'm committed to sharing the message about Arise with other workers in the city facing similar problems. I hope everyone hears about wage theft so that everyone can know it's a serious reality. But there are ways to fight back."

And the city's new wage theft ordinance, passed unanimously by the Chicago City Council in January, is shaping up to be a powerful way to do just that. Starting in July, Chicago employers found guilty of wage theft can have their business licenses revoked. The ordinance is only the second of its kind nationally and has been described by advocates as one of the strongest anti-wage theft laws in the country. And at the heart of the law's successful passage was the Arise Chicago Worker Center, which rallied workers and community partners in support of the proposed ordinance and was fortunate enough to gain the support of key city decision-makers. That support was crucial, said Adam Kader, director of the Worker Center. In fact, the ordinance gained such strong support that the process went from initial talks to final passage in less than a year.

"It really was remarkable," Kader told me.

Wage theft in the Windy City

Every week in Cook County, where Chicago is located, $7.3 million is stolen in the form of wage theft — that's more than $1 million every day, Kader said. According to an April 2010 report from the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois-Chicago, 26 percent of more than 1,100 low-wage workers surveyed in Chicago and suburban Cook County were paid less than the legal minimum wage for the previous week's work. Twenty-five percent of respondents worked more than 40 hours in the previous week, but 67 percent were not paid overtime. And of the 26 percent of workers who reported making a complaint to their employers or attempted to form a union, 35 percent experienced one or more forms of illegal retaliation.

Take just one low-wage sector in Chicago: car washes. In surveys conducted last year by the Labor Education Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, more than three-quarters of surveyed workers earned below the state's minimum wage of $8.25 and 13 percent earned less than $2 an hour for the previous week's work. More than 80 percent of workers surveyed worked overtime in the previous week, but less than 2 percent earned legally required overtime wages. Over the course of a year, workers lost nearly one-third of their annual income to wage theft.

In addition to these violations of wage-and-hour laws, more than 40 percent of survey respondents suffered skin rashes and more than 25 percent experienced nausea or dizziness from exposure to cleaning chemicals. The great majority of car wash workers surveyed were not given personal protective equipment nor informed about the occupational health hazards of their work environments.

"Most businesses (engage in such practices) because they know they can get away with it," Kader said. "They count on workers being alone. ...At the end of the day, there's a lot of reasons for wage theft, but we always come back to the same solution: Workers need to be organized."

And that's exactly what's happening at the Arise Chicago Worker Center, which began in 2002. Today, the Worker Center has about 500 worker members, has helped more than 2,500 workers, and assisted in recovering just over $5 million in stolen wages and compensation for other workplace abuses, Kader said. Worker center members come from a range of low-wage sectors, such as construction, hospitality, domestic work and car washes, and are largely from Hispanic and Polish communities. Like worker centers around the country, Kader and his colleagues not only help workers fight individual cases of abuse and theft at work, but train them to become advocates and organizers for better working conditions. And also like other worker centers, Arise takes the direct approach when it comes to wage theft.

"With wage theft, we take the direct action strategy," Kader said. "On some issues, it can be more effective to work with government agencies, but with wage theft our preference is the direct one."

When a worker comes to the Arise Chicago Worker Center with a wage theft case, the first step is to sit down with the employer and talk about it — "we want to give employers a chance to make good...why bring embarrassment to the business if we don't have to," Kader noted. Unfortunately, most employers don't want to talk, so the next step is to send a request in writing and demonstrate that the "worker has a base of support, that the worker is not alone," he said. In many cases, the letter succeeds in getting a reply from the employer, but if that doesn't work, the next step is sending an unannounced delegation to the workplace to demand a meeting. And if that doesn't get a response, it's time to organize protests and attract media attention.

"The public needs to know that this is a problem of major magnitude," Kader said. "This is a significant amount of money not being paid to workers with major repercussions for the community...This is a crime — it's robbery."

With wage theft rampant in the Windy City, Kader and his colleagues began talking about larger policy solutions to the problem. They began mulling over what role the city and its licensing power could play in confronting wage theft.

And then 30-year-old Ameya Pawar was elected to the Chicago City Council in late 2011 to represent the city's 47th Ward.

A legal victory for low-wage workers

Just a few months after Pawar took office in 2012, Kader and his colleagues went to talk to him about their campaign to improve working and wage conditions for the city's car wash workers. Pawar was moved by what he heard, Kader reported, and talks quickly moved on to the larger issue of wage theft in Chicago. Eventually, Pawar became a vocal champion of the wage theft ordinance proposal, bringing it all the way to the mayor's office.

With a strong supporter in Alderman Pawar, Arise Chicago and their community allies began putting pressure on the City Council's Committee on License and Consumer Protection to pass the wage theft ordinance, which was included in a larger consumer protection bill. It wasn't easy — proponents were up against a formidable business lobby that argued the ordinance would make the city unfriendly to business. (Kader described what he called an "amazing moment" when he walked into talks with nearly 30 business lobbyists who simply wouldn't acknowledge that wage theft was problem or that such employers were operating illegally. Instead, Kader said, they simply repeated the mantra that the ordinance wasn't business-friendly.)

But, thankfully, the ordinance passed anyway — and unanimously. Now, any employer in Chicago found guilty of wage theft can have their business license revoked. In fact, Kader noted that Department of Labor officials are already referencing the new wage theft ordinance in correspondence with employers. Kader said that technically the ordinance doesn't grant the city new powers, but it does "give clarity and provides the city with the ability to point to wage theft as a legitimate reason to revoke a business license."

"More importantly, it's about what it signals to workers, to the public, to the business community," he said. "It validates that wage theft is a crisis, that's it's not an isolated problem. For me, it really legitimizes what we've been saying for years — it won't solve the problem, but it gives us another tool. ...But the policy is only as good as it affords people to organize and to use it. It really rests on the community that's directly in contact with workers to be able to point to it and say the city has an obligation to follow up."

Kader noted that while the ordinance focuses specifically on wages, it might help empower workers to speak up about other poor workplace conditions, such as safety and health violations. Indeed, Linda Forst, a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said that it seems likely that issues of wage theft and health and safety violations would go hand-in-hand — "employers that are skirting the law and rules of ethical behavior are probably skirting those things on all fronts, including on health and safety," she said.

"The work is hazardous, the wages are low, and the employers are a little looser, less formally vetted," Forst told me.

However, Forst isn't optimistic that the wage theft victory will trickle down to affect other conditions within the low-wage sector. While she noted that there is much greater awareness that occupational safety and health is a social justice issue in the same vein as wage theft and that workers may now be in a better position to advocate for themselves, "I don't have faith that it's a big priority or more worrisome to these employers." Similar to many aspects of low-wage work, there's a long way to go, Forst said.

Still, Chicago's new wage theft ordinance is a victory for the worker center movement, said Kader, who added that "naming the problem is the beginning of solving the problem." For car wash worker Nava, he said he now feels like the city is looking out for him.

"Before a boss could commit wage theft against a worker like me and get fined for it but then return to his old ways," Nava said. "Now, this law can make sure that doesn't happen."

To learn more about the Chicago ordinance and the Arise Chicago Worker Center, visit http://arisechicago.org. And click the following links to read more profiles of worker center campaigns against wage theft and other abuses in Austin, El Paso, Houston, and the Rio Grande Valley.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

lborkowski Mon, 04/15/2013 - 11:08

Series worth re-reading: Visits to Texas worker centers

lborkowski — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 09:00:56 +0000

Series worth re-reading: Visits to Texas worker centers

While we're on vacation, we're re-posting some of our past content. Kim Krisberg's series of posts on worker centers in Texas is well worth a second read (or a first read, or a third read ...):

Houston, we have a workers’ rights problem: Profile of a worker justice center in Texas’ biggest city
Last month, more than 70 ironworkers walked off an ExxonMobil construction site near Houston, Texas. The workers, known as rodbusters in the industry, weren’t members of a union or backed by powerful organizers; they decided amongst themselves to unite in protest of unsafe working conditions in a state that has the highest construction worker fatality rate in the country.

On the border of change: A portrait of the workers’ rights movement in El Paso
In the fall of 2011, a new Texas statute took effect against employers who engage in wage theft, putting in place real consequences for employers found guilty of stealing wages from workers. It was a big step forward in a state where wage theft has become as common as cowboy boots and pick-up trucks. It was especially good news for workers in El Paso, where wage theft has become so rampant that workers rights advocates have dubbed it an “epidemic.”

‘An issue that affects all of us’: Young workers center takes on wage theft in the Rio Grande Valley
For six months, Jorge Rubio worked at a local chain of tortilla bakeries and taquerias in the cities of Brownsville and San Benito, both in the very southern tip of Texas. Rubio, 42, prepared the food, cleaned equipment, served customers. Eventually, he decided to quit after being overworked for months. On his last day of work, his employer refused to pay him the usual $50 for an 11-hour workday.

A different kind of Texas-style justice: Two nights at Austin’s Workers Defense Project
It’s Tuesday evening and as usual, the small parking lot outside the Workers Defense Project on Austin’s eastside is packed. The dusty lot is strewn with cars and pick-up trucks parked wherever they can fit and get in off the road. I’ve arrived well before the night’s activities begin, so I easily secure a spot. But my gracious guide and translator, a college intern named Alan Garcia, warns me that I might get blocked in. It happens all the time, he says.

lborkowski Mon, 12/31/2012 - 04:00

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Occupational Health & Safety

Texas

worker centers