RECOMMENDATION A:
STRENGTHEN STATE AGENCY PROGRAMS

Improve the ability of all State of California agencies responsible for working conditions to protect the safety and health of immigrant workers.

A-1.

Establish and meet linguistic capacity goals. This recommendation applies to the new Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) and to other branches of the state government, such as the Department of Health Services (DHS), that have some responsibility for working conditions. [LWDA includes, among others, the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), and the Division of Workers' Compensation (DWC), all within the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR). See Appendix 5.]

These agencies are out of compliance with the Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act (Government Code Sections 7290-7299.8), which requires state agencies that are in contact with "a substantial number of non-English-speaking people" to evaluate and meet the linguistic needs of the public they serve. This Act is a starting point for improving access to the information and services provided by these agencies, as it requires that agencies provide materials in non-English languages and employ sufficient numbers of qualified bilingual persons in public contact positions. Therefore, these agencies should immediately develop and implement plans to meet this mandate, as well as broader requirements as proposed in 2002 in AB 2837 and SB 987 (see Appendix 2). The plans should include the following:

A-1-a.

Hire more bilingual and bicultural inspectors. DOSH and DLSE should employ sufficient numbers of qualified bilingual and bicultural inspectors and office staff in public-contact positions to ensure that the same level of service is available to non-English-speaking workers as to English-speaking workers. The lack of bilingual inspectors severely limits a non-English-speaking worker's right to participate in the inspection process. Although DOSH is pilot-testing a telephone translation service, this is clearly inferior to having bilingual inspectors, at least in the most common languages encountered in the field.

DOSH and DLSE must receive funding to hire more staff and must have a plan for recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining qualified bilingual inspectors and other public contact staff. Hiring this additional staff will also help mitigate the severe staffing shortage discussed in Recommendation A-5, below. The Department of Public Administration should assist in creating job titles and pay scales to allow effective recruitment of bilingual staff.

Prior to hiring sufficient numbers of bilingual staff, DOSH and DLSE should develop an interim plan that identifies current bilingual personnel within each geographic region and arranges for sharing of resources between offices, as needed to cover the major languages appropriate to each office.

A-1-b.

Train and recruit bilingual health and safety professionals. DOSH should work with universities and others to recruit bilingual industrial hygienists and other occupational safety and health professionals, and support their training through stipends and assistance with graduate school tuition.

A-1-c.

Develop culturally and linguistically appropriate educational methods and materials. Immigrant workers need to have access to the same information currently available to English-speaking workers. State agencies should develop culturally and linguistically appropriate strategies for producing and disseminating information to immigrant workers. To identify the best strategies, the agencies should work with organizations that have experience doing outreach and education in immigrant communities (For example, see Recommendation
A-2).

Strategies might include: translating selected written materials (such as forms, applications, notices); adapting other written materials taking literacy levels into account; and developing new communication tools, such as videos, hotlines, and media spots, that may be better vehicles for reaching immigrant workers. Prior to developing new materials, the agencies should assess what is already available. Materials and other informational resources should be distributed in appropriate communities and posted on the Web.

A-2.

Create a multilingual advisory committee for the new Labor and Workforce
Development Agency. The agency should establish a committee representing immigrant communities and organizations to oversee the coordination and development of information and services for immigrant workers. The committee would be involved in planning an effective outreach strategy, designing and implementing educational efforts, and helping the new agency prepare annual progress reports in this area.

A-3.

Improve inspectors’ ability to involve immigrant workers in the inspection process. Staff of the new Labor and Workforce Development Agency should participate in a training program to improve the ability of inspectors to approach and talk with non-English-speaking workers in the workplace. It is important for inspectors to have a true understanding of the conditions these workers experience and of their sense of vulnerability within the workplace, as well as of the cultural and linguistic barriers that could be at play. Inspectors who are successful in involving immigrant workers in the inspection process should share their strategies with others.

A-4.

Require that health and safety information provided by employers be available in non-English languages. The Cal/OSHA standard requiring every employer to develop and implement an injury and illness prevention program (Title 8, California Code of Regulations, section 3203) mandates that communication about health and safety matters be "in a form readily understandable by all affected employees." DOSH inspectors should be directed, through DOSH policies and procedures, to inquire about possible language barriers and to cite employers for violations of this standard if training and communication on health and safety matters is not provided in appropriate non-English languages.

A-5.

Direct more enforcement efforts to high-risk immigrant workplaces.

A-5-a.

Increase targeted inspections. DOSH is severely understaffed, with well under the bare minimum number of inspectors (238) required by the negotiated federal benchmark. This understaffing results in little inspection activity that is not complaint driven. Because immigrant workers are least likely to file complaints, the immigrant sector of the workforce is disproportionately affected. In revitalizing targeted inspections and determining which industries to target, the agency should investigate the use of additional criteria beyond workers' compensation statistics, which are used currently to identify high-hazard industries. These greatly underestimate the incidence of injuries and illnesses among immigrant workers, because many do not apply for compensation.

A-5-b.

Create partnerships with community-based organizations (CBOs), and treat complaints filed by CBOs as formal complaints. Community-based organizations (CBOs) can play a critical role in assisting workers, in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner, in exercising their legal rights. Immigrant workers may be more likely to report hazards to a trusted source in their own community than go directly to a governmental agency. (See also Recommendation C-1.)

Through pilot partnerships with the new labor agency, CBOs could conduct outreach, provide training, develop materials, and assist in representing workers in filing complaints with DOSH, DLSE, and other agencies. The agencies should treat complaints filed by CBOs as formal complaints, triggering an on-site investigation, and should involve the CBOs in any follow-up that results. (In Illinois, federal OSHA has worked with community groups to develop an advocacy program that allows low-wage and immigrant workers to file complaints through an organization called the Chicago Area Workers' Rights Initiative.)

A-5-c.

Create partnerships with local enforcement agencies to encourage them to report hazardous conditions to DOSH. On a pilot basis, in several communities, DOSH should enter into partnerships with local enforcement agencies, including fire departments, county health inspectors, and others, to report hazardous conditions to DOSH, especially regarding “informal” workplaces that are often overlooked. Where workers are unlikely to know about DOSH or are afraid to report hazards or file complaints, this may be the only possible "trigger" for inspecting some of the most hazardous worksites.

In San Francisco, for example, DOSH participates in a special group (Coordinated Enforcement Agency Task Force) that was established to coordinate responses by multiple state and local agencies to problems involving hazardous materials. Similarly, discussions are underway in Alameda County to bring together representatives from DOSH and local agencies, to better coordinate their respective responses.

A-5-d.

Coordinate enforcement efforts to protect farmworkers. The agricultural industry is unusual in that two different agencies enforce laws to protect the health and safety of farmworkers. County Agricultural Commissioners, within the Department of Pesticide Regulation, enforce the laws governing exposure to pesticides. DOSH, within the Department of Industrial Relations, enforces all other laws pertaining to farmworker safety and health. These two agencies should share information about site-specific problems and coordinate their enforcement efforts.

A-6.

Protect whistleblowers. It is illegal for an employer to retaliate against workers who exercise their rights to report workplace injuries, illnesses, and unsafe conditions to management and to file complaints with Cal/OSHA. California, however, has a poor record in protecting whistleblowers who exercise these rights. Although workers who are discriminated against for exercising these rights can file complaints with DLSE, there is no aggressive program to investigate these complaints. This especially impacts immigrant workers, who feel particularly vulnerable to retaliation for addressing health and safety concerns. DLSE should take immediate steps to improve the training and supervision of its investigators. A plan for improving investigation of discrimination complaints should include hiring of additional bilingual investigators. For workers who exercise their rights, there must be full protection from discrimination based on immigration status.

A-7.

Create an Office of Immigrant Affairs (OIA) within LWDA. The person heading the
OIA should have a position equivalent to Deputy Under Secretary, and the main responsibilities of OIA would be to advise the Governor and Secretary of Labor on issues affecting immigrant workers, make recommendations on internal procedures and policies that will improve conditions for immigrants, and act as a liaison between working immigrant communities and LWDA. Objectives A1-A6 should be carried out under the supervision and oversight of a newly created OIA.