Health and Safety

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 gave workers the right to a safe job. Yet, more than 40 years later, workers are still hurt and even killed on the job by preventable injuries. Latinos are the group most likely to die from an injury on the job; in 2010, the Latino worker fatality rate was 3.9 for every 100,000 workers, compared to 3.6 overall.

The overrepresentation of Latinos in hazardous jobs only partially explains their risk of injury or death at work. Other factors, such as outdated standards, underresourced enforcement agencies, and a broken immigration system that leaves workers vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous employers, all contribute to the unacceptably high level of occupational injury and illness among Hispanic workers.

NCLR reports on Latino trends in occupational safety and health and advocates for modernized labor protections and better enforcement of existing occupational safety and health laws.

OSHA Alliance with NCLR
On May 20, 2011, NCLR entered into an Alliance with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The OSHA Alliance with NCLR fosters information- and resource-sharing and improves OSHA’s reach into Latino communities by building relationships between regional OSHA representatives and NCLR Affiliates.

(L to R): Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary, USDOL-OSHA, and Eric Rodriguez, NCLR Vice President, Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation, sign a national Alliance agreement.

For more information about the OSHA Alliance with NCLR, contact Emma Oppenheim, Associate Director, Workforce Development Policy Initiatives, at eoppenheim@nclr.org.

Our Team
Catherine Singley, Senior Policy Analyst, Economic and Employment Policy Project, csingley@nclr.org
Alicia Criado, Policy Associate, Economic and Employment Policy Project, acriado@nclr.org