Following up on our Worker Memorial Day post, new statistics show workplace deaths for Latinos are on the rise. According to the AFL-CIO annual report “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect,” workplace deaths among Latinos in America rose from 748 in 2012, to 817 in 2013. The majority were men, and the overwhelming majority were immigrants: 542.The report shows the total number of workers who die while on the job continues to decline year-to-year. But for Latinos the number is increasing. An NBC News report quoted Peg Seminario, director of health and safety for the AFL-CIO: “Latino workers have had a heavy burden and a disproportionate rate of job fatalities for numbers of years, but we had been making progress,” she said. “And now we see that being reversed, so that is a great concern.”
The largest number of Latino workplace fatalities occurred in construction, mostly related to transportation incidents. Part of the problem, as Neidi Dominguez, director of worker centers for the AFL-CIO told NBC News, is “that many Latino workers don’t know about their workplace protections. And those that do are afraid to report workplace violations, especially undocumented immigrants who fear they’ll be deported if they speak up.”
The report illustrates the need for stronger enforcement among temporary and subcontracted workers.
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