The Militant - June 23, 2008 -- Latino immigrants are workers most likely to be killed on the job

Vol. 72/No. 25 June 23, 2008

Latino immigrants are workers
most likely to be killed on the job

BY DOUG NELSON
Latino immigrants are 50 percent more likely to be killed on the job than other workers, according to government statistics from 2006, the most recent available.

Two-thirds of the 990 Latino workers killed on the job in 2006 were immigrants, although immigrants only make up about half the estimated 19.6 million Latino workers in the United States.

A disproportionate number of Latino immigrants work in some of the most dangerous industries, such as construction, where bosses have used the greater vulnerability of undocumented immigrants as a spear point in their productivity drive at the expense of safety.

Overall workplace fatalities in the United States have been on the rise since 2002. The construction boom claimed the lives of about 1,300 workers in 2006. A major cause has been the rise in workplace deaths from falls. Among Latino workers, falls from a higher level have recently outstripped all other specific causes of job fatalities, increasing fivefold since 1992.

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