A report published by the Center for Construction Research and Training FoundThe stalidations among Hispanic construction workers doubled between 2011-2022, emphasizing the job inequalities of the workplace, according to some proponents of labor and safety.
The center He examined the data on the census of fatal occupational injury and the current population survey and identified 408 fatalities among Hispanic workers in a December 2024 report. right Hispanic construction workers: employment, business property.
The fatalities were an increase of 107.1%, and the deaths among non -Hispanic construction workers increased by 16.5% in the same period, from 583 to 679, according to data. From 2021 to 2022, Hispanic construction workers also accounted for 34.5% of non -fatal lesions with working days and 47.3% of non -fatal injuries that require transfer or restriction days.
The challenges that increase the risk of injuries among Hispanic construction workers include language barriers, lack of available training materials in Spanish or other native languages and lack of security and training resources, the report stated.
“These findings reinforce why the industry must prioritize pre-work and pre-learning training,” said Greg Sizemore, Associated builders and contractors’ Vice President of Health Development, Safety, Environment and Labor. He added that “simply putting construction workers at work is not enough.”
Sizemore pointed to ABC’s Health and Safety Management System As a resource of this type that encourages contractors to holisticly cure security measures to individual needs.
“The passage goes beyond observable security behaviors, adopting a welfare approach of anyone,” he added.
The percentage of Hispanic construction workers went from 16.5%in 2000 to 34%by 2023, according to data collected by CPWR, with dry wall wall installation (75.2%), roof (63.9 %) and painting (62.5%) among the highest representations of Hispano workers.
“The fact that fatalities among Latin construction workers more than duplicated in the last decade is a tragedy and a crisis, exposing a systemic failure to address deep labor safety inequalities in this country,” he said. Ligia Guallpa, executive director of the Workers ‘Justice Project, who defends the increase in immigrant workers’ rights and provides security training to improve working conditions.
“Latin workers fill the critical labor gaps as they are disproportionately faced with the most dangerous working conditions,” GUALLPA added. “They do this with little access to training or labor protections, weak application and fear of retaliation if they speak.”
Linguistic barriers and lack of supervision have created environments where immigrant workers are afraid of talking about security problems for fear of being repressed, added Gualpa.
“It is also the reason why we allow immigrant workers to fight for systemic changes in the standards of application, regulation and industry, because systemic systemic failures require that the power of collective workers be responsible Of the industries, “said Guallpa.
