Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Hispanic Worker Initiatives

SPANISH OSHA WEBPAGE

• Monday, February 25, OSHA’s new Spanish Web page makes its debut.The new page will offer one-stop service for Spanish-speaking employers and employees. In addition to basic information on OSHA and a listing of publications in Spanish, the page includes information on employer and worker rights and responsibilities

1-800-321-OSHA:

• OSHA’s toll-free help line now offers callers a Spanish option.  Callers can report complaints, seek help resolving a specific safety or health concern or request publications 24 hours a day.

OSHA HISPANIC TASK FORCE:

• Last fall, OSHA convened an internal task force to address concerns about safety and health among Spanish-speaking workers.  The group is working to form alliances with Hispanic trade and union groups, leadership groups, and community and faith-based organizations that serve Spanish-speaking workers and employers.

BEST PRACTICES SUMMIT

• OSHA is organizing a best practices conference to enable employers to share information about strategies that have worked to reduce injuries and illnesses for non-English speaking employees.

ENFORCEMENT

• Although the Occupational Safety and Health Act requires all employers to report workplace deaths, employers who hire undocumented workers may fail to do so.  OSHA staff around the country are cultivating and renewing relationships with federal sate and local law enforcement and health authorities as additional sources for obtaining information on work-related deaths.

PARTNERSHIPS:

• The 3000-member Hispanic Contractors of America, Inc., and OSHA are developing a new partnership to make more safety and health training available in Spanish.

• Working with the Consul General of Mexico, OSHA’s Dallas office is holding stakeholder meetings later this month with organizations that have developed safety resources for Hispanic employers and employees. Bi-lingual trainers, consultants and vendors will be ready to talk with groups invited by the Mexican consulate who are concerned about safety for Hispanic workers.

• OSHA’s Chicago regional office partnered with the Residential Construction Employers Council to publish three construction safety brochures in Spanish and Polish.

EDUCATION AND COMPLIANCE ASSISTANCE

• OSHA Ft. Worth staff participated in a safety panel at a Hispanic Contractors Association conference last November in Las Colinas. That session led to an effort by OSHA, the insurance industry, the Associated General Contractors and the Associated Builders & Contractors along with Familia Nuevo Leon, a non-profit Hispanic training enterprise, to promote safety through radio ads on local Spanish-speaking radio stations.

• Fort Worth Spanish-speakers may see work-related safety information on local billboards or participate in a 10-hour construction safety course conducted in Spanish by OSHA staff.

• The Construction Accident Reduction Emphasis (CARE) program in Florida provides training and outreach to construction employers and workers as part of a local emphasis inspection program aimed at reducing construction fatalities in South Florida.

• In New Jersey and New York, OSHA is working with church and community groups to provide information on basic worker rights.

• Last October, OSHA staff in Philadelphia participated in a Hispanic community outreach program called Mirando al Trabajo, describing the agency’s services.

• OSHA’s Kansas City Region has translated the agency’s Fall Protection Pocket Guide and other safety cards into Spanish. The region maintains a library of training videos in Spanish addressing such hazards as lead exposure, blood borne diseases and lockout-tagout.

• OSHA staff in Georgia and Alabama speak regularly to Hispanic groups and distribute a Spanish video “An Introduction to OSHA for the Latino Worker,” which describes the agency and its efforts to protect workers or a video in Spanish on excavation and trenching hazards

TRAINING

Targeted training grants to be awarded later this year will focus on under-served populations, such as Spanish-speaking workers. The goal is to reduce the language barrier as a potential stumbling block. 

Employment and Training Administration
Hispanic Worker Initiatives

TARGETED ETA PROGRAMS

• Job Corps: After Outreach and Admissions staff determines eligibility, the LEP students are referred to Job Corps centers with English as Second Language (ESL) Programs, offered at over 35 Job Corps centers nationwide.

• Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) Authorized by the Older Americans Act, SCSEP provides low-income persons, 55+ years old, with opportunities to gain meaningful part-time paid work experience in community service agencies, and assists them in obtaining unsubsidized jobs in the public or private sectors.

• National Association of Hispanic Elderly: In 2001, NAHE served over 2,500 people, 81 percent of whom were Hispanic.

• National Asian Pacific Center on Aging: NAPCA currently manages SCSEP projects in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

• Welfare-to-Work Competitive Grants (Phase 3): In Round 3 of the WtW competitive grants, the Department awarded to 64 organizations. The following are three examples of programs that serve limited English proficiency populations:

Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona, Inc.:The program targets eligible participants with limited English proficiency residing in urban Pima County and the rural areas of Cochise and Yuma counties within the state of Arizona.

City of Gilroy, California:Recognizing the high cost of living in the San Jose area, the City of Gilroy's project Mujeres Pueden, or "Women Can,” is designed to give participants the necessary skills and experience to be successful in non-traditional employment.

Church Avenue Merchants Block Association, Inc. (CAMBA): The CAMBA offers three vocational training opportunities in the fields of community health, private security, and family day care.

ETA DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS:

Multicultural Service Strategies and Solutions for the 21^st Century Workforce: This demonstration project will address the needs for LEP workers and the workforce system through a two stage phased effort. This will include:

• Planning grants for up to 15 workforce boards with significant limited English proficient worker populations.

• Two bidders’ conferences to assure that organizations that have not traditionally applied for DOL/ETA grants are more likely to consider applying for such grants.

Border Skills Workforce Demonstration Project: The project will expand training and ultimately employment opportunities, to targeted populations in the rural and isolated communities of the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU):The intent of this project is to provide technical assistance to Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) on workforce development.

New Start Initiative: This youth offender demonstration project targets Seattle-King County, Washington neighborhoods where poverty and gang activity are high.

Technical Assistance Grants:

• National Council of La Raza (Washington, D.C.): Provides training and technical assistance to their affiliates on workforce matters through meetings, conferences, publications and joint activities with the national office.

• LaGuardia Community College (New York City, New York): Analyzes skills shortages in entry-level telecommunications jobs and design effective recruiting and training strategies for eligible Hispanics.

Dislocated Worker Manufacturing Technology Demonstration Grant (Milwaukee County, WI): The AFL-CIO HIRE Consortium, which operates the WIA funded dislocated worker services in the Milwaukee area, is partnering the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership to establish the Tech Track Project to address serious labor shortages in manufacturing the next five years.

ACCESS TO ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS:

A number of ETA systems offer services in translation that can assist LEP immigrants. One example is:

• O*NET: A Spanish language version of the O*NET database is currently being developed in a multiphase project.

ETA GUIDANCE:

ETA has also developed guidance on serving immigrants or persons with limited English proficiency. The guidance regarding these services is expected to be published in the Federal Register by late February 2002.76

Wage and Hour Division
Hispanic Worker Initiatives

• Mexican Consulates:Over the last year, WHD has provided training to the staff of Mexican Consulates in California, Arizona and New Mexico.WHD has also been invited to join Consulate staff as their Mobile Consulate travels to immigrant communities around the country.

• National Interfaith Committee of Worker Justice: Launched in Chicago on Labor Day 2001, WHD partnered with the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice to produce workers’ rights bulletins. The bulletins were translated into eight languages and are now available on CD-ROM in all 50 states.

• Justice and Equality in the Workplace: In July 2001, the Wage & Hour Division (WHD) partnered with the Houston Mayor’s Office, the Mexican Consulate, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund to form the Justice and Equality in the Workplace program to educate the Latino community regarding their rights as workers. WHD has recovered more than $100,000 in back wages as a result of complaints from workers who learned about their rights through the program.

• Dominican Republic Consulate: WHD will soon enter a partnership agreement with the Dominican Republic Consulate to provide workers who travel to Puerto Rico with information about their rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

• Multi-lingual Outreach: Currently, half of WHD investigators are multi-lingual: 343 investigators speak Spanish; 53 speak Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean or Thai. WHD investigators use a variety of media to reach the immigrant worker community, including public service announcements; Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese-speaking radio and television programs; and Spanish and Chinese press. WHD investigators provide seminars in other languages to immigrant workers and small business owners. WHD is also working to translate educational materials explaining rights of workers into other languages – most recently, a flyer about workers’ rights in Polish.

• Enforcement: In 2001, WHD increased enforcement of the H-1B temporary visa program, recovering $1,335,000 in back wages for 190 workers with H1-B visas. WHD continues to be an active participant with the Department of Justice in the Worker Exploitation Task Force, established to coordinate criminal prosecution of worker exploitation and forced labor. Most WETF cases involve immigrant workers.

Mine Safety and Health Administration
Hispanic Worker Initiatives

WEBSITE:

• Portions of MSHA's website are currently translated into Spanish, and MSHA is planning to translate its entire website into Spanish in order to better serve the Hispanic and Spanish-speaking mining community.

• The MSHA website is a very popular way for the mining community to obtain information. In the year 2001 it had 55 million hits.

• The website include MSHA regulations, alerts regarding mine hazards, reports of accident investigations, and compliance assistance materials, among a wide assortment of helpful information.

PUBLICATIONS AND OTHER MATERIALS:

• MSHA has translated 30 of its almost 50 publications and videotapes with the rest to be translated at the end of February.

• In addition to these materials, MSHA produces other Outreach materials such as posters and stickers for Spanish speaking miners.

• It is MSHA's goal to translate, by the end of FY2002, all its education and training materials produced since 1996 into Spanish.

ACCIDENT REPORTS

• Since January 2001 MSHA has provided Spanish translations of accident reports to the next of kin of Hispanic victims, and translated all fatalgrams into Spanish.

TRAINING:

• Some of our EFS (Educational Field Services) Training Specialists are bilingual and regularly conduct programs for Spanish speaking miners in the southwest.

• Since January 1, 2001 they have conducted programs in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Texas on Hazard Awareness, Miners' Rights, and Introduction to Mining.

• In addition, as part of MSHA's current "Focus on Safe Work" outreach program (to help stem the alarming increase in fatalities this year), we are conducting sessions for Spanish speaking miners.

STATE GRANTS

• MSHA operates a state grant program that provides money to state agency programs responsible for miners' health and safety. Currently 44 states and the Navajo Nation participate in the grant program. :p>

• Most grant funds are used to support health and safety training courses and programs designed to reduce mining accidents, injuries, and illnesses.

• Some of our state grantees regularly schedule training programs in Spanish. Since January 1, 2001 they have included FL, TX, NM, AL, CO, GA, MS and AR.

• In addition, some of the states that don't have Spanish-speaking instructors use interpreters when they have Spanish-speaking miners in their classes.

MSHA HIRING:

• MSHA's Office of Diversity, Outreach, Employee and Safety has been coordinating with DOL and various universities throughout the country to market job opening to Hispanics, along with other minorities.

• MSHA's Outreach Coordinator participates in the annual Hispanic Job Fair.

• MSHA's Director of Administration and Management implemented the first annual Hispanic Heritage celebration in 2001 to promote awareness of the Hispanic culture.

Pension Welfare And Benefits Association
Hispanic Worker Initiatives:

• Unveiled a toll free number for workers and retirees to call with questions or concerns about health and retirement benefits. The number (866-275-7922) will have operators fluent in English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese. This number will also access to the translation service mentioned above.

• Implemented a translation service to assist PWBA’s benefits advisors in providing important benefits information and answering questions in 50 languages from immigrants with limited English speaking ability.

• Expanded educational materials provided in Spanish to nine with the translation of four additional publications, including a question and answer booklet to assist dislocated workers.

• Enhanced the agency’s website by providing educational materials in Spanish, including posting important questions and answers as part of the agency’s September 11 assistance for workers highlighted on its homepage.

• Conducted and participated in outreach events to increase awareness of the Department of Labor as a resource to assist immigrants with limited English speaking ability regarding their pension and health benefit plans, including:

• Partnering with local and national organizations to expand the agency’s reach to immigrant communities around the country such as teaching a “Money Smart” class on financial literacy in Spanish in Chicago.

o In addition, the Department’s Health Benefits Education Campaign and Retirement Savings Education Campaign work with partners to develop and distribute educational information. The Health Campaign has worked with partners including the National Council of La Raza and the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum to help distribute PWBA’s health benefits education publications.

o Developing and distributing nationwide a new tool, a flyer for those with limited English speaking ability facing job changes. The flyer highlights the agency as a resource with a local contact number and was translated first into Chinese and will be expanded shortly into additional languages.

Translating and distributing around the country a poster in Spanish focusing on dislocated workers and providing a local PWBA contact number for more information and assistance.