Reports Reveal Latinos Are the Mostly Likely to Be Injured at Work and the Least Likely to Report It
A recent report has revealed that a large number of workers who die or suffer injuries at work are Latino, and another shows that fewer workers are getting injured at work, but the ones who do often keep it to themselves.
According to a federal report that was released last month, there were 4,405 workers killed in the United States while on the job. An alarming number of them were Latino — 797 of them, which translates to nearly four Latino deaths per 100,000 Latino workers.
Death rates among Latino workers in 2013 are much higher than those for any other race — among whites the number of deaths per 100,000 workers was 3.2, among blacks it was 2.9, and among Asians it was 1.5.
According to Relfejos, there are probably two main causes of the disproportionate death rates for Latino workers. The main issue is that Latino workers rarely protest against dangerous working conditions — either because they are not citizens and fear deportation, or because they do not speak English and there is a language barrier.
Some advocates also cite insufficient training of minority workers who often do dangerous jobs on a temporary basis.
This was the case, for example, for a 32-year-old machine helper Luis Rey Rivera Pavia, who was killed when he reached into a machine. Two other minority workers had been injured by the machine.
Injuries at work are not uncommon, but they are actually decreasing. The problem, however, is that although there are fewer workers sustaining injuries on the job, even fewer of them are reporting their injuries.
Experts say that as much as 80% of the population will have back pain at one point or another, which is one of the most common ailments related to work. However, TribLive.com reports that many workers do not report their injuries at all, due to uneasiness about job security and the inadequate programs that are meant to deal with them.
The Department of Labor has found that of all workers, Latinos are the least likely to report their injuries, but according to the study above, they are also the most likely to be injured.