According to Maria Brunette in her 2004 British Medical Journal article, Latinos currently have "higher [rates of] fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries than any other ethnic group in the United States," and their fatality rate "is about 20% higher than the rates for white and black workers." Data shows that national rates of occupational injury and illness dropped 35% between 1992 and 2001 but increased 67% for Latino workers. Occupational risk is influenced by Latinos' concentration in higher-risk industries. In segmented labor markets, Latinos were most likely to work at jobs in the seasonal industries of agriculture and construction.

Many business leaders have taken part in popularizing and reinforcing race-based assessments of Latino workers. The Memphis Business Journal in 2001 quoted a construction company's President as saying that Latinos "were one of the best things that ever happened to the construction industry…days don't mean anything to them. They'll work 12 hours. And they can do many things." Construction company and contractor impressions that Latino workers "work hard and don't complain" is one way that they are able to recast their own economic interests and sense of opportunity as a set of cultural values unique to a specific racial/ethnic group. Contractors use these constructs of the "Latino" capacity for work to control all workers' productivity. As a result, the construction industry secures greater profits by shifting the burden of occupational risk onto the most vulnerable workers, .

The dominant explanation for foreign-born Latinos' disproportional occupational risk often reverts to claims of lower educational attainment, fewer job skills, and lack of English proficiency. A study by Barbara McCabe, Cliff Carpenter and Danielle Blair in 2003 found that Latinos working in cleanup after the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster were "given ordinary cleaning tools," were not trained or told of hazards, were not given personal protective equipment, and "did not understand hazards or how to protect themselves." As a result, the writers advocate sensitivity to culturally-appropriate language in written and oral communication. Nonetheless, this emphasis on worker responsibility and culturally- and linguistically-appropriate information often sidesteps the problem of segmented labor markets, discrimination, and the employers' role in shifting occupational risks onto vulnerable Latino workers.

In contrast, Latinos working on cleanup and recovery in a post-Katrina New Orleans explained their occupational risk in ways that promoted structural understandings of their vulnerability. Latinos felt that their relative lack of education, job skills, and English proficiency had a minor influence on their work, but that instead their employer discriminated against them (due to their race and legal status) in work assignments, thereby increasing their likelihood of injury and death. These problems were largely invisible to the occupational health and safety specialists that arrived in the area. As the nature of work in New Orleans moves toward new construction, the risk of occupational accidents, such as falls, also increases.

Closer to Home

General trends that have garnered greater attention in natural disaster scenarios are also evidenced in Michigan. The Southeast Michigan Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health sent a 21 year old man back to his mother Mexico in a casket after he was killed when a forklift drove over him. He was the sole breadwinner for his mother and younger siblings, but the family was ineligible for any payment for his death. After battling for a year with the insurance company, his family was reimbursed for the $6,000 expense of bringing him home. Following the reimbursement, the insurance investigator resigned because she was sick of being forced to continuously deny injured workers legitimate compensation payments.

Similar cases are all too common. For instance, a 24 year-old male from Mexico, living in Detroit, injured his back at work and requires surgery that he cannot afford. Due to his disabling injury, he and his pregnant wife are forced to rely on his mother's income to survive. Additionally, a Mexican parishioner of a local church caught his arm in a machine at a local parts plants approximately 2 _ months ago. His arm was chewed up and he was unable to get proper medical care as the parts plant not only refused to pay his medical bills, but fired him. His arm became gangrenous and was amputated. Approximately 2 weeks ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials showed up at his door, arrested him and transferred him to New Mexico where he has become "lost in the system."

These tragic cases of worker injustice and invisibility represent a sample of many stories in the Metro Detroit area. In the vast majority of such cases, the employer simply fires the injured worker, refuses to pay medical bills and follows through on threats of deportation should the injured worker pursue her/his claim. These are workers vulnerable to the system because of the refusal of the U.S. government to give them legal status. Companies save money by refusing to adhere to any safety standard for these workers as they are not liable for any injury that results from their disregard for employee safety. In complicity with employers, the U.S. government, via free trade agreements such as NAFTA, has created a system of vast surplus labor that is readily employed and fired at will. The time has come to organize this rapidly growing group of workers, while elevating the status of all workers in this country.