The Advancement Project issued today its report, “Worker exploitation in New Orleans is running rampant.” I have not studied it yet but conversations with people involved or who know the study inform me that the researchers found — as did those involved with the two other studies I have posted on — violations of workers comp standards. I will post more as I dig into it. to find these other studies, type “katrina” in the search box.

Two study teams have told me that workers compensation coverage has pretty much disappeared for the estimated 5,000 undocumented workers engaged in the Katrina cleanup. I have already posted about the study conducted by Tulane University and UC Berkeley. I spoke with Phuong Pham, a professor at Tulane and one of the leaders of that team. She told me she was not aware of any injuries being treated within the workers comp system. The second study was supported by the
NDLON – the National Day Labor Organizing Network — and UCLA, and the main researcher was Tomas Aguilar. He told me the same thing.

I have found on the net a powerpoint presentation of Platner’s important analysis of higher hispanic construction fatalities.
It was originally published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine and must be purchased.
An analysis of post construction fatality data extending through 2003 can be found here.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health asked people at community health centers about workers compensation and OSHA. They drew from a sample of 1,428 persons who had worked within the past year. Average age was 34.8; 66% were born outside the United States. Their employment fairly represents the distribution of immigrant work in Massachusetts.
Findings, as reported by Letitia Davis, of the Occupational Health Surveillance Program, who ran the survey, were:
Nearly 39% of CHC patients reported that they had never heard of workers’ compensation. Awareness of workers’ compensation varied by self-reported race, ethnicity, and place of birth…… Hispanic and Black workers had the lowest reported awareness of workers’ compensation – over 48% of both groups reported never having heard of workers’ compensation before the date of their interview. White workers were the least likely to report (21.1%) that they had never heard of workers’ compensation.
Cross-tabulated by place of birth, workers born in countries other than the United States or Puerto Rico included the highest percentage of persons (51.8%) reporting that they had never heard of workers’ compensation, followed by respondents born in Puerto Rico (41.6%) and the mainland United States (15.3%)…..Awareness also varied by occupational category: lack of awareness of the workers’ compensation system was highest among operators, fabricators and laborers (47%). Managerial and professional specialty workers were least likely (17.0%) to report that they had never heard of workers’ compensation.
The overall percentage of respondents reporting no awareness of OSHA was 62.7%. Awareness varied somewhat by race; over 70% of those reporting their race as Hispanic/Latino had never heard of OSHA. White workers, however, were most likely to report awareness of OSHA (37.7%).
Contact info for Dr. Davis: Letitia.Davis@state.ma.us, (617) 624-5626.

A new study by researchers at Tulane University and the University of California, Berkeley reveals that undocumented workers are being abused even as they provide critical help to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the most costly natural disaster in American history. This according to the press office of Tulane University. It goes on:
The comprehensive study of more than 200 workers surveyed in March 2006 by researchers at the Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer at Tulane University and the International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley discovered vulnerability of undocumented workers, including severely reduced access to health care, wage discrepancy and unsafe working conditions.
The study found that almost half of the reconstruction workforce in New Orleans is Latino, and 54 percent of that group is undocumented, meaning 25 percent of all workers are undocumented Latinos. In the aftermath of the storm, the federal government allowed special waivers of immigration laws, which made it easier for employers to hire undocumented workers. Two-thirds of Latino construction workers have moved to the area since Katrina hit in 2005. But 87 percent of the undocumented workers were already living in the United States before they moved to New Orleans. This means that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita did not cause an influx of illegal immigrants across the US border as many have reported.
The study, Rebuilding After Katrina: A Population-Based Study of Labor and Human Rights in New Orleans, finds:
On average, documented workers received significantly higher wages than undocumented workers peforming the same work ($16.50 per hour average for documented vs. $10 per hour for undocumented.).
Construction workers frequently report experiencing problems receiving wages owed, especially undocumented workers.
Further findings:

Continue reading Illegal immigrant workers face serious risks in Katrina cleanup

In May The Forward carried a story, “In Iowa Meat Plant, Kosher ‘Jungle’ Breeds Fear, Injury, Short Pay”. It is about work for 800 workers starting at $6.25 an hour in one of the largest kosher chicken processing plants in the country. The plant is located in Postville, a 2,500 population town in the rural northeastern part of the state. Writes the author Nathaniel Popper: “The company’s business model has been economically successful. AgriProcessors is the only kosher slaughterhouse in America producing both beef and poultry. While AgriProcessors has been expanding steadily, its closest competitor in the poultry industry, Empire Kosher, recently fired employees and cut back operations. Union leaders at Empire Kosher said that the cutbacks were necessary because Empire pays its lowest-ranking unionized employees close to $3 more an hour from the outset than AgriProcessors’ lowest employees, and provides full benefits.
Even among nonunion plants, experts say AgriProcessors’ salaries are low. “I have not heard of a six-dollar wage since I started working in Nebraska in 1990,” said Lourdes Gouveia, director of the Office of Latino Studies at the University of Nebraska, where she studies working conditions in the meat packing industry.
He goes on: “Juana and other employees at AgriProcessors — they total about 800 — told the Forward that they receive virtually no safety training. This is an anomaly in an industry in which the tools are designed to cut and grind through flesh and bones. In just one month last summer, two young men required amputations; workers say there have been others since. The chickens and cattle fly by at a steady clip on metal hooks, and employees said they are berated for not working fast enough. In addition, employees told of being asked to bribe supervisors for better shifts and of being shortchanged on paychecks regularly.”
Thanks to Jason Barab of Confined Space for alerting me to the story.

The following is the executive summary of a 185 page report issued by the Human Rights Watch in January 2005. The report is entitled Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers’ Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants. (The Summary is also available in Spanish: Sangre, sudor y miedo: Derechos de los trabajadores en las plantas cárnicas y avícolas de Estados Unidos.
This is probably the most referenced report on working conditions of immigrant workers in the huge meat processing industry. It is unfortunately light on injury and fatality data, but is worth looking at as it puts the problem of occupational health and safety of these workers into a broad, international context.
The Executive Summary:
Workers in American beef, pork, and poultry slaughtering and processing plants perform dangerous jobs in difficult conditions. Dispatching the nonstop tide of animals and birds arriving on plant kill floors and live hang areas is itself hazardous and exhausting labor.1 After slaughter, the carcasses hurl along evisceration and disassembly lines as workers hurriedly saw and cut them at unprecedented volume and pace.
What once were hundreds of head processed per day are now thousands; what were thousands are now tens of thousands per day. One worker described the reality of the line in her foreman’s order: “Speed, Ruth, work for speed! One cut! One cut! One cut for the skin; one cut for the meat. Get those pieces through!” Said another: “People can’t take it, always harder, harder, harder! [mas duro, mas duro, mas duro!].”
Constant fear and risk is another feature of meat and poultry labor. Meatpacking work has extraordinarily high rates of injury. Workers injured on the job may then face dismissal. Workers risk losing their jobs when they exercise their rights to organize and bargain collectively in an attempt to improve working conditions. And immigrant workers—an increasing percentage of the workforce in the industry—are particularly at risk. Language difficulties often prevent them from being aware of their rights under the law and of specific hazards in their work. Immigrant workers who are undocumented, as many are, risk deportation if they seek to organize and to improve conditions.

Continue reading “Blood Sweat and Fear” – Meat and Poultry Plants (Human Rights Watch, 2005)