October,
2003
LOHP,
WISH, and San Mateo Labor
Council Train Immigrant
Workers
In
the summer of 2003, LOHP helped organize four health and safety
training sessions for immigrant workers in California's San
Mateo County. This large urban county south of San Francisco
is home to San Francisco International Airport, hundreds of
traditional and high-tech industries, hotels, restaurants,
business parks, and retail centers. It is also home to thousands
of working people who are recent immigrants to the U.S.
Co-sponsors
of the training were the San Mateo County Central Labor Council's
Health @ Work project and the Working Immigrant Safety and
Health Coalition (WISH). WISH is a group recently organized
with LOHP's help. It includes community organizations,
unions, immigrant rights advocates, health care providers,
and local and state agencies. (Click
here for more on WISH.)
More
than 65 people attended at least one of the four sessions,
given in English and Spanish. Participants were both union
and non-union immigrant workers with jobs in homecare, construction,
airline food service, day labor, janitorial work, retail, and
many other occupations.
LOHP's Pam Tau Lee explains
health and safety rights.
LOHP's
Dinorah Barton-Antonio (second
from left) with training participants.
The
training was led by LOHP's Pam Tau Lee and Dinorah Barton-Antonio.
A popular "hazard mapping" activity allowed those
attending to draw maps of actual workplaces and chart the location
of various types of health and safety hazards. Worker health
and safety rights were also discussed, including the right
to make safety complaints without fear of reprisal and the
right to get information on hazardous chemicals in the workplace.
Ergonomic dangers such as lifting and repetitive job movements
were another topic.
Hazard
mapping was a popular activity.
One
enthusiastic participant, Vicky Avila, later prepared an article
in Spanish for the Labor Council's newspaper, San Mateo
County Labor. The article, which appeared in the paper's "Voz
de la Comunidad" section, took ideas from the training
and applied them to the unique health and safety problems facing
immigrant women. Click to see the article in English or Spanish.
To
follow up on the training, LOHP is helping the Labor Council
survey its affiliated unions. The survey seeks to learn the
health and safety training needs of the affiliates, their staff
and members. Unions are also being asked if they are currently
active in organizing campaigns, and if they have negotiated
health and safety language in their contracts. All this information will
be taken into account in designing future training.
For
more information on the training sessions or the union survey,
contact Pam Tau Lee at LOHP: ptlee@berkeley.edu.
Also
see the Immigrant
Workers' page for more on the WISH Coalition.
Adapted
in part from San Mateo County Labor. All photos
courtesy of San Mateo County Central Labor Council.
