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Immigrant Workers Suffer High Work Injuries, Less Medical Care
By Roxana Hegeman, Associated Press - June 15, 2006

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Hispanic workers, many of them illegal immigrants who fill some of the most dangerous jobs in the United States, are being killed by workplace accidents at the highest rate since the government began tracking those fatalities, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week.

The newly revised 2004 count by BLS shows 902 Hispanic workers were killed across the nation, including 11 in Kansas.

Since 1992, the number of fatalities among Hispanic workers has grown from 533 fatalities in 1992 to 794 in 2003. The latest spike reverses a recent downward trend that came after Hispanic worker deaths hit at 895 fatalities in 2001.

But the more than 164,390 Hispanics injured on the job in 2004 - particularly those who are undocumented workers - face an uncertain future. Hispanic activists contend they are far less likely than their white co-workers to get workers compensation for their medical treatment because of fear of deportation or unfamiliarity with English.

Rogelio Ortega, an illegal immigrant who came to this country 10 years ago, worked as an aircraft interior installer at Cessna Aircraft for more than four years before he slipped while climbing the ladder of a plane at the company's Wichita plant. He lost his job a few months later after Cessna told him it had no work for him given his medical work restrictions.

Since then he has tried to get worker's compensation insurance to pay for therapy, and to find other work given his work restrictions.

In pain and with bills mounting at home, Ortega pleaded his case to media outlets. "I don't care if they deport me," Ortega said in Spanish. "I want people to know how big companies use people up."

Cessna offered him $6,000 last month to settle the case. Eric Kuhn, an attorney with Foulston Siefkin LLP, the firm which represents Cessna in the case, also warned him in the same letter against talking to the media.

"Did your client contact them about this case for some reason?" Kuhn wrote to Ortega's attorney in a letter dated April 27. "If so, isn't that a dangerous move given his illegal immigration status?"

Neither Kuhn nor Cessna would talk about that letter.

For its part, Cessna said its company policy to comply with state and federal employment laws regarding employment verification. The company instituted an electronic background checking system in 1999 and has recently hired an immigration specialist. It is now looking at whether to add a homeland security background checking system.

"We have never knowingly hired an employee who was not authorized to work in this country," said Cessna spokesman Robert Stangarone.

He declined to discuss the specifics of the Ortega case - other than to say that Ortega's claims have no factual basis.

Bob Hernandez, a community activist in Wichita who often works on behalf of injured Hispanic workers, said many companies hire undocumented workers in construction and other high risk jobs because they know they will not complain if they get hurt.

"It is rampant, and that is why they do it," Hernandez said. "They know the jobs are dangerous. One way of getting around the liability is, hire someone who doesn't have much legal recourse."

Hispanics, which comprise 12.5 percent of the U.S. population, also have some of the highest work injury rates in the nation. The 2004 figure of more than 164,000 Hispanics hurt while working for private industry in 2004 is from the 1.25 million total injuries in industry that year.

No industry or government agency tracks by race the amount of workers compensation paid to Hispanics to see if the compensation is comparable to their higher injury rates. But Hispanic activists say companies often use worker's illegal immigration status - the type of worker most likely to take the most dangerous work - as a way to keep from paying claims for on-the-job injuries.

Elias Garcia, executive director of the Kansas Advisory Committee on Hispanic Affairs, said he frequently hears horror stories from workers, especially in the nation's meatpacking plants where injuries are high.

"At the end of the day, you can make all the noise you want but the ultimate decision is in the courts. If you have no standing in the courts you are screwed. That is the reality of it," Garcia said.

Even though workers compensation in Kansas has nothing to do with legal residency or citizenship, companies often use a worker's legal status to challenge claims or intimidate workers, he said.

"You could fight it, but it is kind of like running a marathon," he said. "It is not a quick, easy thing to do. It is a long-term endeavor. It wears people down. They don't have the money, the resources - physical, mental or financial - to compete with businesses."

Dan McCausland, director of worker safety and human resources for American Meat Institute, the trade group representing the nation's meatpackers, said companies have very little control over workers compensation claims. He also said the industry doesn't knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

"Once an employee goes for health care resulting from an occupational injury the workers compensation process is pretty straight forward," he said. "Companies for most part don't have too much to do with it. The courts dictate the medical bill, wage replacement ... and disability award."

Some states have even tried to lower their workers compensation costs by excluding claims from illegal immigrants. Three such bills failed in the South Carolina Legislature last year.

A group of injured workers at the old ConAgra plant in Garden City formed a group calling itself Striving for Justice to fight for safety and medical costs, Garcia said. When the plant closed permanently after a fire, its members scattered. But the issue has resurfaced at other meatpacking plants amid union organizing efforts in western Kansas.

At the Ortegas' modest home in Wichita, Marcia Leticia Ortega cries as she talks about the pain her husband endures from his back and knee injuries. She works at a Wichita metalworking factory to support the family, and her husband contributes what he can by selling food she makes at home to Mexican workers at construction sites.

"If he were healthy again, we could start all over again," she said in Spanish.

Her husband added, "I don't want money. What I want is for the pain to go away."

 

 
 

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