The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #36721

Susan Cameron, MHS, Occupational Safety and Health Office, United Food & Commercial Workers Union, 1699 East Woodfield Rd., Suite 500, Schaumburg, IL 60173 and Robyn Robbins, CIH, Occupational Safety and Health Office, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, 1775 K St. NW, Washington, DC 20006, 202-233-3111, scameron@ufcw.org.

Safety and health activists in the meatpacking and poultry industries face obstacles in advocating for worker rights. Obstacles can include a workforce consisting largely of non-English speaking immigrants who may be unaware of occupational safety and health protections in the United States. Unions rely on activists among the rank and file to advocate for employer compliance with federal standards and other improvements in occupational safety and health conditions. As the demographics of local unions becomes increasingly diverse, it is important that this change be reflected in the cadre of safety and health activists. The UFCW has faced challenges in recruiting immigrant activists. Challenges to recruiting Spanish speaking safety and health activists include language barriers; Latino worker intimidation due to insecure legal documentation status; worker alienation due to local union leadership and communities which do not reflect their ethnic or cultural background; and misinformation regarding the rights of immigrant workers. The UFCW developed a Spanish language video to overcome some of these challenges to recruiting Latino safety and health activists. Developing this video consisted of a) qualitative research on issues facing Latino workers; b) recruiting Spanish speaking workers to participate in this video and filming video footage; and c) testing the video. This session will provide opportunity to share the results of the research, and discuss important components of the video, as well as issues in developing the users guide that accompanies the video. A portion of the video will be shown.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the challenges faced in recruiting and developing safety and health activists in multi- cultural (specifically Spanish speaking new immigrants) environments.
• Identify the strategies used in developing a Spanish language worker rights video, and how the video will be used to address the challenges discussed above.
• Create a dialogue among colleagues on additional strategies used to develop Spanish speaking safety and health activists among local unions.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.