General Relief Workers Say They Face Job Hazards

They vacuum floors, scrub sinks, answer phones and mow lawns alongside full-time county workers, but some of the indigent who toil for the county in exchange for a welfare check say they are being exposed to dangerous working conditions without receiving the proper equipment or training.

Workers in the county-funded General Relief program say they have developed skin rashes, breathing disorders, back strain and other health problems related to their work. Under the program, recipients must work 40 hours a month to receive the maximum $212 payment.

Recipients and their advocates cite as one example a May incident at County-USC Medical Center in which a General Relief worker seriously injured his arm while operating heavy machinery that they say he was not trained to operate. He was hospitalized for several days after the accident and has not returned to work.

County officials acknowledge that the accident occurred but declined to comment further, citing the possibility of litigation. The worker could not be reached for comment.

A lawyer representing another recipient said his client suffered serious skin and bronchial irritation after being exposed to a harsh germicide while working at the hospital. James R. Evans Jr. said he has talked to several other workers and may file a class-action lawsuit charging the county with violating health and safety standards and providing inadequate training and equipment to welfare workers.

“It is my opinion that they are taking a very lackadaisical approach to worker safety,” said Evans, who is representing Roberto Gomez. “They are exposed to blood products and waste, expected to wipe up floors and walls, and it’s not something you want to expose an untrained worker to under any sort of circumstances.”

County officials say most of the charges are either overblown or have been addressed and resolved. They insist they have gone out of their way to ensure that General Relief workers are treated the same as others.

“We had heard complaints, and I asked my staff to follow up each and every one of them,” said Margaret Quinn, an administrator with the General Relief program in the county Department of Public Social Services. “But we didn’t find any differences in how the GR workers were being treated.”

*

Nonetheless, county officials issued a March memo informing supervisors in charge of the General Relief workers that they would be subject to unannounced visits to ensure that safety laws are being followed.

The workers’ cause has been taken up by the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a community group that is attempting to organize workers on welfare around the nation over such issues as wages and job training. County officials say the current complaints have less to do with safety issues than with attempts by the organization to make political inroads.

Organization officials say the safety concerns are real.

“The fact is, in work site after work site our members have raised [health and safety] issues,” organizer Amy Schur said. “One of the symptoms of the problem is that when a [General Relief recipient] is not considered a real worker, day-to-day working conditions can be hell.”

At the heart of the issue is an emerging national debate about how to treat workers on welfare and the direction that workfare programs will take. If welfare recipients are doing work for the county, they ought to be paid at least the minimum wage and have other employee protections, advocates argue.

Lawmakers in many states counter that welfare reform will be too costly if recipients are paid and otherwise treated the same as other employees.

The battles are taking shape in counties including Los Angeles, which has the largest population of General Relief recipients in the state. The program serves 90,000 indigent single adults who do not qualify for other forms of welfare.

Some recipients said they were treated fairly well at their work sites and only wished that they could gain full-time employment. But others said they put up with intolerable conditions.

Adeline Quintero, a 47-year-old Los Angeles resident, started working at County-USC Medical Center a year ago after obtaining General Relief. Quintero said the cleansers she used during her custodial duties at the hospital seeped through the latex gloves that she was issued, causing a severe rash, swelling and pain in her hands. The regular hospital workers, those not on welfare, were given thicker gloves and trained in how to mix the various chemical cleaners to avoid irritation, Quintero said.

“They said one of the cleaners we used would make the bathrooms white, clear away all the scum, but I got sick every time with headaches and dizziness,” she said.

*

Carmen Scott, associate administrator of medicine services at County-USC, said the hospital provides suitable gloves and other protective equipment to General Relief workers and insisted that many of the charges involve the same few people whose complaints have already been addressed and resolved.

She said the accident in which a worker was hurt while operating equipment was an anomaly.

“There has been no accident before of this sort as long as I have been here,” she said. “Custodians do not use all the equipment available . . . but they are trained on equipment they’re supposed to handle.”

Scott said that since the workfare program came under her purview about a year ago she has intensified orientation and training programs and has provided the General Relief recipients with work uniforms.

“I became aware that we had a population working here doing the same things as full-time custodians and they were working in their own clothes, and I thought that was not appropriate,” she said. “And if they work outside doing what we call groundskeeping, I have asked trainers to develop a program for them. That’s never been done. Before they were just sent out to pick up trash, clean grounds and not given the sort of [common] precautions.” But she said some workers have refused to wear uniforms or protective gear.

General Relief recipient Isabel Bell began working at Worthington Elementary School in Inglewood a few months ago and said she was exposed to harsh cleansers while cleaning the school cafeteria. She said the gloves she was issued irritated her hands and school officials would not provide any others.

*

“It seems I was allergic to them,” said Bell, 43. “When I went to the nurse’s office, she said she couldn’t treat me because I wasn’t a staff member. There were boils so bad that I still have the scars on my hand.”

Ernesto Osorio, the plant manager who supervises General Relief workers, said gloves are always available.

“We do have rubber gloves but she has never requested them,” Osorio said. “A lot of the times the soap we are using is the same as the detergent we use at home. I have no complaints from any of the other workers.”

About 16,000 General Relief recipients work or train each month at county and city parks, Juvenile Hall, beaches, schools and other areas. More than 800 of them are sent to County-USC Medical Center to work in the laundry, tend the grounds and clean hospital halls and rooms.

Quinn said a May review of 80 of the nearly 500 contracted workfare sites revealed only a few problems--and none of them serious safety issues.

At the Museum of Natural History there had been complaints that General Relief workers were not being provided with the kind of heavy lifting belts now commonly used by workers engaged in strenuous activities. Quinn said county reviewers found that the belts were being distributed but that many workers did not want to wear them.

At County-USC, Quinn has decided not to assign any new workers to cleaning duties inside the building, where they might feel uncomfortable working around patients. “Any time someone has concerns about an assignment, all they have to do is ask to be reassigned,” she said.