Keeping multicultural workers safe

ÀQue pasaria si las intrucciones para ayudarte a prevenir que un Trascabo te aplaste, estubieran escritas asi?

Words. On operating instructions, safety procedures, waivers of liability. Missing even a few words, or misunderstanding them, can mean the difference between going home at the end of the day, and not. Hugging your kid, and not. Paying the bills, and not.

(By the way, the first sentence of this story may be translated as: "What if the instructions you needed to keep from being crushed by a back hoe looked like this?" How many did you get right? What about context?)

Language proficiency is just one of the challenges faced by multicultural or non-English-speaking workers — and their employers — when it comes to workplace safety. Others can include cultural differences and fear of termination or, sometimes, deportation.

But demographic realities are rapidly pushing workplace safety, particularly for foreign-born workers, into prime time. The impetus? National surveys show that foreign-born workers — led by the nation's largest minority group, Hispanics — are getting hurt and killed at work in disproportionate numbers.

"There is an increasing crisis of safety among Hispanic workers, who are being injured at a higher rate than their non-Hispanic counterparts at work," said Jorge Sanchez, multicultural affairs coordinator at the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

Rising rates

In 2004, the fatality rate for Hispanics was 25 percent higher than for non-Hispanics, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fatal work injuries among Hispanics were "sharply higher" in 2004, the BLS reported, increasing 11 percent that year after declines in the previous two years.

Fatal work injuries among workers of Asian, native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander descent rose from 158 in 2003 to 177 in 2004, an increase of 12 percent (largely due to two multifatality accidents involving Asian workers that year), the BLS reported.

Equivalent local data doesn't exist. The Utah Labor Commission does not track injuries by ethnicity, according to Joyce Sewell, director of the industrial accidents division at the commission.