Sometimes Scrimping Can Be Deadly : State cutbacks cast shadow on L.A. factory job safety
Amid the bustle of a Southern California economy increasingly keyed to foreign trade, high technology and entertainment, it’s easy to forget that a lot of gritty manufacturing work is still done in local factories. A recently completed Times series documented just how risky, and even fatal, such work can be for the Latino workers who now make up roughly half the blue-collar work force in local manufacturing.
A six-month study by Times staff writer David Freed found that Latino workers in the Los Angeles area, many of them recent immigrants or school dropouts whose knowledge of English is limited, are particularly susceptible to workplace injury. Statistics alone are revealing: 67% of the workers killed in manufacturing-related accidents in Los Angeles County in 1988-92 were Latino.
But just as striking were the many individual cases Freed wrote about: dozens of Latino workers maimed, scarred or blinded for life while using dangerous equipment or toxic materials. And they are the “lucky” ones who survived. Too many of their compatriots die in similar accidents.
The solutions to this appalling problem are not all the responsibility of government, of course. Better training to prepare workers for the hazards of a particular workplace is called for, regardless of any language differences that may exist between workers and supervisors. But if there is one agency that Freed found is clearly not doing a good enough job it is the state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA.
The victim of drastic budget cutbacks in 1987 under former Gov. George Deukmejian, the agency is a shell of its former self. A recent study by the AFL-CIO cited by Freed estimates that at Cal/OSHA’s present staffing it would take the agency 46 years to inspect every workplace in California. Of course, some workplaces require closer safety monitoring than others, and here the priorities of Cal/OSHA need rethinking.
With only one inspector for every 409 manufacturing facilities in the Los Angeles region, Cal/OSHA has been reduced to visiting factories only after some terrible injury or death has occurred. The agency must reassign some of the inspectors it has monitoring white-collar workplaces in Northern California to Los Angeles. Cal/OSHA staff members must also have access to adequate translation services so they can better serve Spanish-speaking workers.
And Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature must reverse Deukmejian’s decision to gut Cal/OSHA. They must increase the agency’s budget so that it can hire more inspectors, then allow them to enforce workplace safety rules more aggressively. While that might seem to run counter to Wilson’s admirable campaign to reduce government regulation in order to make California more friendly to business, worker safety is one area where less regulation is arguably very bad for business.
When workplace dangers are allowed to go unchallenged, other problems can follow even when there are no accidents. For instance, it is not reaching too far to suggest that the state workers’ compensation insurance crisis is related to workplace safety. Accidents drive up premiums. And when the boss doesn’t care about safety, some workers may seek to “get back” by filing frivolous workers’ comp claims. And that can drive up the cost of doing business more than paying for safety measures, without the added benefits that workplace safety provides--like high productivity and good morale.
To the extent a strong Cal/OSHA can make this state’s factories safer, it will be good for California business.
