Training Sessions Help Workers Become Health Advocates
 ow-wage workers are far more
likely to encounter health and safety risks in the workplace than higher paid workers, as
reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In addition, workers in lower paying jobs
usually have far fewer resources to eliminate the risks or to prevent or treat the
resulting health problems.
With a two-year $110,000 grant from TCWF, the Santa Clara Center for Occupational
Safety and Health (SCCOSH) in San Jose trains workers in Santa Clara County —
including the high-tech Silicon Valley — to recognize workplace health hazards and
communicate with their employers and health care providers to mitigate these risks.
   "Among the
workers who are most vulnerable to on-the-job health and safety risks are women of color
and temporary or ‘piece workers’ who have little or no protection from hazards
or job loss if they protest," said Lucía Corral Peña, TCWF program officer.
"It’s very difficult for them to think of themselves as change-makers."
SCCOSH provides special training sessions for low-income workers, primarily in the
electronics, hotel housekeeping and home health care industries.
Common health hazards in these industries are ergonomic distresses of repetitive-motion
syndrome and back injuries, respiratory diseases and systemic poisoning from chemicals.
Many health risks are gender related, affecting reproductive health and sometimes causing
miscarriages, birth defects and cancer of reproductive organs, said SCCOSH Project
Director Raquel Sancho.
 "One of the most important outcomes of the
training classes is the increased ability of the workers to define health and safety
problems they’ve experienced at work and what they’d like to do about
them," said JoLani Hironaka, SCCOSH executive director. "That clarification is a
benchmark in taking control of their lives and their health."
Because these workers often are hard to reach, Sancho recruits participants from a
broad network of community-based organizations, health care agencies and churches in the
area. Classes are also held in locations convenient for the workers.
"These people take tremendous risks when they become aware of health hazards and
come forward," Hironaka said. One male participant in the project’s pilot group
— a temporary worker who performed heavy, stoop, assembly-line labor for an
electronics firm — joined a health safety committee, only to be harassed by company
officials and finally "downsized" out of his job, Hironaka said. SCCOSH is
seeing his case through the state Department of Industrial Relations’ Labor
Commission for Health and Safety Retaliations.
At the end of the grant period in June 2001, SCCOSH plans to prepare a report of its
activities and disseminate it among state officials in an effort to raise awareness of
health and safety issues of low-wage workers in high-tech areas.
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