San Francisco Department of Public Health / La Raza Centro Legal
"Day Laborers' Health and Safety"

The San Francisco Department of Public Health and La Raza Centro Legal have been working to address health and safety issues faced by day laborers in the city. With a grant from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, the program provides health and safety information in the context of other services provided to meet the men’s and women’s physical, economical, and legal needs. Many jobs available to day laborers are in construction, but many day laborers lack the experience needed to fill those jobs. The lack of construction skills also increases their risk of sustaining occupational injuries. One of the interventions being piloted under the grant includes offering an eight-hour training in basic construction skills (e.g., hanging sheetrock) that integrates health and safety information (e.g., ergonomics of handling sheetrock) and introduces tools to reduce injuries and illnesses (e.g., work gloves used for carrying sheetrock).

The Day Laborer Program is also offering a course on human rights that embraces the integrated approach to providing health and safety information. In this course, occupational health and safety rights are discussed as part of the workers’ human rights. For example, the workers are given an opportunity during this course to practice dealing with police harassment as well as to negotiate with employers for safe tools and personal protective equipment. Upon graduating from this course, some of the day laborers serve as peer “defensores” in the day laborers’ legal clinic. These day laborer “legal defenders” provide their clients with an orientation to their labor rights, which includes their health and safety rights. The clinic assists clients in getting their unpaid wages as well as making referrals for workers’ compensation legal assistance.

Initially, with the help of LOHP and the Department of Health Services’ Occupational Health Branch, the project organized 10-15 minute training in Spanish that took place in the locations where the day laborers wait for work, meet for breakfast, and seek shelter. Gauging from the lack of interest in these safety talks and after evaluating the needs of these workers, the program changed its strategy in providing health and safety information to these men. The day laborers appear to be much more enthusiastic about learning about health and safety when the information has been nestled within the context of meeting their felt needs.