Hispanics hurt and killed on the job at highest rate

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May 2003

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Hispanics hurt and killed on the job at highest rate
Although workplace safety and health is improving overall, fatalities among Latino workers continue to dramatically escalate, according to the 2003 AFL-CIO study entitled "Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect; a State-by-State Profile of Worker Safety and Health in the United States," released April 28.

The report shows that since 1992 the number of fatalities to Hispanic workers killed at work has increased by 67 percent, from 533 fatalities in 1992 to 891 in 2001. At the same time, the overall number of workplace fatalities dropped from 6,217 in 1992 to 5,900 in 2001. Hispanics have a fatality rate of 6 per 100,000 workers, well above the national rate of 4.1 per 100,000.

"The rate in which Hispanic workers are dying on the job is a national tragedy. Employers must stop exploiting Hispanic workers and dramatically improve workplace safety, and the government must do more to hold employers accountable," says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

According to the report, Hispanic workers are often denied major safety protections and face harsh and illegal penalties from employers for reporting violations.

Fatalities among immigrant workers have followed a similar trend, increasing from 635 in 1992 to 849 in 2000. In 2000, 58 percent of immigrant workers who died on the job are Hispanic. New statistics show that things are even worse for immigrant workers in Florida and Texas. The number of foreign-born work fatalities in Florida has risen by more than 60 percent over roughly the last decade, and in Texas, 190 Hispanic workers and 115 foreign-born workers statewide died on the job in 2000, a dramatic rise from the previous year.

The AFL-CIO report charges that the Bush administration has done little to curb unsafe working conditions for Hispanics and immigrants. The administration has cut vital training and education programs for Hispanic workers, killed an ergonomics regulation that would have helped many Hispanic workers who are routinely crippled in the nation’s poultry factories, and has refused to require employers to pay for protective gear for workers.

The AFL-CIO used the release of the report to press for more funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a federal agency it credits with saving 271,704 lives because of workplace safety improvements. "Yet, the Bush Administration is trying to weaken OSHA. Between 1999 and 2002, the number of employees covered by federal OSHA inspections decreased by nearly twenty percent. The average number of hours spent per inspection also decreased, from 22 to 19.1 hours for safety inspections and from 40 to 32.7 hours per health inspection."

Overall, 5,900 workers died nationally from on-the-job injuries in 2001 (not including September 11), with over 5.2 million workers facing injury or illness on the job. To inspect every workplace nationwide only once would take 80 years.

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