¿Hablas Español?
A new language in safety
Local construction programs
focus
on industry-specific Spanish
By Ellen Hickok-Wall
Daily Reporter Staff
The
Occupational Safety and Health Administration will focus its attention
in 2002 on providing safety for non-English-speaking workers, according
to John Henshaw, assistant secretary of labor for OSHA.
Henshaw announced
in January that OSHA's enforcement efforts will increase this year,
with emphasis on businesses -- including construction companies --
that employ workers who don't speak English.
The nation's 2002
census figures show that Hispanic workers represent the largest segment
of people living and working in Wisconsin for whom English is not
the first language.
Numbers of Hispanic
people residing in Wisconsin in 1990 more than doubled in the 2000
census, from about 93,000 in '90 to nearly 193,000 a decade later.
Those figures
imply that there's a segment of the population that could be tapped
to help ease worker shortages, said Melvin Lischefski, Appleton OSHA
office area director.
His office is
working with the Appleton area technical schools to develop a conversational
Spanish class, he said.
They've also developed
a Spanish fall-protection program.
"It's basically
the OSHA fall-protection rule, but it's in Spanish," Lischefski
said.
George Yoksas,
area director for OSHA's Milwaukee office, said his staff is actively
recruiting a Spanish-speaking compliance officer for southeastern
Wisconsin.
"There's
a need for it, particularly within our locality," he said. "In
addition, a while back, we translated a number of workers' rights
or protections under OSHA into eight languages, including Braille."
And OSHA is complementing
its efforts with brochures for the Hispanic community, Yoksas said.
The
number of Hispanic people in Wisconsin
nearly doubled between 1990 and 2000.
|
Wisconsin
Census 1990
Total Population: 4,891,769
Hispanic Population: 93,194
Percent of Total: 1.9 percent |
Wisconsin
Census 2000
Total Population: 5,363,675
Hispanic Population: 192,921
Percent of Total: 3.6 percent |
| Source:
U.S. Census Bureau Web Site |
"So that
we can distribute those where appropriate, and provide that information
so that at least those types of workers know that they have protections
that would be afforded them," he said.
Dan Burazin, safety
director for the Associated General Contractors of Greater Milwaukee,
said OSHA's effort would have little impact in Wisconsin, which has
fewer non-English-speaking workers than other states, such as Florida
and Texas.
"Milwaukee
really doesn't have that problem yet, but in the next five years,
we could," he said.
Recognizing the need
Some associations
that serve the building industry are aware of the need to introduce
new languages to construction, said Ellie Hein, director of training
services for the Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin.
That's why Hein
is coordinating a four-week workshop: Spanish for Construction Professionals.
Before planning
the seminar, she said she checked with ABC members to make sure they
saw a need for Spanish in the industry.
"Our contractors
said they would probably send field supervisors or project managers
-- people who will have contact with project owners who are doing
the building," she said.
So, the focus
of the classes, she said, is as much geared toward clients as it is
to workers.
The workshop,
staged by SpeakEasy Consulting, will build the framework for speaking
Spanish, focusing on job-specific language.
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Michelle
DuVall, a trainer with SpeakEasy Consulting, teaches a
group of contractors the intricacies of Spanish as it
relates to the construction industry at a seminar in Madison
on Feb. 18. The Spanish workshop was coordinated and sponsored
by the Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin.
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"We know
that there is a worker category that we have not tapped into, so we
should be encouraging our contractors to tap into those workers,"
Hein said.
The Spanish class
will focus on pronunciation, basic grammar, greetings, job-relevant
verbs and vocabulary, times and dates, scheduling and payroll, questions,
instructions and equipment and supplies.
Mike Fabishak,
executive vice president of the AGC of Greater Milwaukee, said his
organization has no plans for Spanish classes, but he foresees an
increasing need to handle language issues.
"We anticipate
that as this decade unfolds, we'll see a larger presence of Hispanics
and minorities in general in the industry, and we'll have to do more
to adapt," he said.
The AGC of Greater
Milwaukee has safety videos in its library with Spanish versions available,
Fabishak said.
"We also
recently purchased a bunch of pocketbooks that are related to applying
the Spanish to construction terminology for purposes of non-English-speaking
supervisors or foremen who may need to communicate to Spanish employees,"
he said.
