Posted on 11/13/2007 5:30:09 PM PST by Tennessee Nana
Safety warnings are given in English and Spanish at the sprawling BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee construction site in downtown Chattanooga.
Supervisors at the Cameron Hill site, where BlueCross is building a $300 million headquarters complex, say knowledge of both languages is necessary because Spanish-speaking workers outnumber English speakers three to one.
Brian O'Shea, the project superintendent, has been in construction for 23 years. He has seen many work force changes and an increased emphasis on safety, he said.
"It was hard to get people to wear their hard hats back then," Mr. O'Shea said of his early years in the business. "But that's an old way of thinking. Now it's a subculture. "If we hurt people, we aren't accomplishing what we set out to achieve."
At the BlueCross site, 20 or more bilingual workers help spread the word that safety is a priority, he said.
As the nation's construction work force becomes increasingly Hispanic, having bilingual employees is a tool second only to a hammer and nails, builders said.
Even if builders looked elsewhere, English-speaking labor might be hard to find, said Barry Payne, who builds about 20 homes a year in the Tennessee Valley.
Hispanics are "who's doing the work," Mr. Payne said. "It has kind of been forced on the market right now."
SAFETY PRACTICES Skanska, the primary builder at the BlueCross site, recently held a week-long safety campaign. Morning demonstrations included training in how to operate harnesses and scissor lifts as well as handling fires and dealing with electricity.
The classes, like all training at the site, were offered in English and Spanish.
In Tennessee, four Hispanic workers died at construction sites in 2006. That represents a fifth of all the deaths from construction site accidents in the state, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In New York City, where development is progressing at breakneck speed, Hispanic advocates have suggested the building boom might be costing immigrant laborers their lives, according to a recent Associated Press story.
Immigrant workers there sidestepped usual safety measures to save their jobs, sometimes suffering life-ending injuries, the AP reported.
Local builders, however, said that is not the case here, though Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show construction is tied with transportation as the state's deadliest profession.
Managers at the BlueCross site admit their profession has dangerous roots, but they said they are hoping to change that.
So far, at 379 days into the four-year project, no one has missed work because of an injury, Mr. O'Shea said.
He said he walks the five-building, 2-million-square-foot project every day looking for potential problems. Every subcontractor is required to meet in the morning and form a "pre-task plan," he said.
"They identify the hazards and show the steps to mitigate against the dangers," Mr. O'Shea said. "Every worker signs off on that."
Anibal Franco, a project engineer from Colombia, is responsible for all the safety training. He speaks Spanish and English and can communicate with both sets of workers, he said.
Mr. Franco said anyone on the job site has the ability to stop work if something seems unsafe.
"The fact that you don't speak English well doesn't mean you don't have the right to prevent an accident," he said.
Mr. Franco works for contractor H.J. Russell & Co. A third contractor, EMJ General Contractors, also is on the site.
The three companies are ahead of their peers in safety efforts, Mr. Franco said. He, Mr. O'Shea and Skanska Senior Vice President Brian Murray acknowledged that sending employees to morning meetings and regular safety classes costs money.
"We don't want to make a profit putting our workers in harm's way," Mr. Murray said. "That's not an honest way to do it."
BILINGUAL HELP Smaller builders that don't have the corporate support and money to do in-depth training also find ways to make their immigrant workers safe, said Teresa Groves, executive officer of the Home Builders Association of Southern Tennessee.
For Mexico native Luis Becerra's 12 years in construction in the U.S., few sites have been without interpreters. At the BlueCross site, one person in his pod of workers can speak both languages. The Cameron Hill project is unique, though, he said.
"It's one of the only jobs that gives safety training as a part of orientation," Mr. Becerra said through an interpreter. "They do it in both English and Spanish. That's unusual."
Larger construction sites have more help for non-English speakers, he said.
Mr. Payne said he looks for that bilingual link when hiring a crew.
"Typically we have one or more (workers) that speak fluent English ... and that's how I communicate with them," he said. "I don't know if the workers I hire have just been Americanized or what, but they seem to understand what our level of safety is here."
Mr. Franco said that, as a supervisor, workers "feel more comfortable and protected by me because I speak their language."
He shows PowerPoint slides to new employees to explain their safety rights. At the end, a slide that displays a photo of a young girl reads, "They expect you to come home safely. So do we."
Mr. Franco said he is serious about safety.
"An accident here is a tragedy here and back in our home country," he said. "We remind them of their families."
E-mail Adam Crisp at acrisp@timesfreepress.com
This is not Mexico...this is in Chattanooga, TN...
Are there no American construction workers who would like to work in these jobs?
PING
The problem is a lot of people who SPEAK Spanish can’t READ Spanish!
I should move to Tennessee and up the English to Spanish ratio.
IF yuo hire spanish only speakers, your safety stuff better be in spanish, unless you want to be running ambulances and hearses back and forth. Safety is safety. It is not immigration.
Did you know this was happening? I just live about 20 miles away...
There are no local American guys that would have worked on this construction site?
Here’s a proposal: Anyone in America who carries on his or her routine work activities in a language that is not the English language, they should be paid in the currency of the nation whose language they speak, and at the going wage in that country for the work performed. You’d be surprised at how quickly they start speaking English.
HELLOOOOOOO .... EARTH TO ICE....EARTH TO ICE....
seems rather obvious, doesn’t it...
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
You’re an undocumented Tennessean now...
I thought the same thing...
If ICE drives slowly by, how many will run for the border?
LOL
Perhaps you would prefer dozens of injured and dead workers?
Yes, there are. It's just that the American workers like to get paid a bit over minimum wage for skilled construction work whereas the illegals will work for less than minimum, under the table.
American workers won't agree to be paid under the table....not those who are law-abiding or have any principles. Americans also know that they are the ones who would be prosecuted for violations of income tax avoidance. That same law, and others, apparently don't apply to illegals who can break all American laws with impunity.
The point is the Mexican workers should not be here...
Why are Americans not hired for this work?
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