Hablando la misma lengua*

* Talking the same language

UAW at forefront for Spanish-speaking members

Health and safety training can include new and technical words and abstract concepts. Members who primarily speak Spanish can lose much in the translation when being trained by someone whose primary language is English.

Photo: Luis Vazquez / UAW LOCAL 1981:

Marisela Garcia of UAW Local 2200 gets help as she puts on a safety harness during health and safety training. Garcia is among those who will train other Spanish-language trainers to take information back to the UAW's Spanish-speaking members.

 

The UAW offers a Spanish section on www.uaw.org. Click on this icon on the UAW home page.

And that’s too great a risk to our Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters. It’s why the UAW provides health and safety training by Spanish speakers.

“Health and safety training is so critical, but doing it in a language that workers cannot understand is worthless,” said Phil Wheeler, director of Region 9A, which includes Puerto Rico.

“Our brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico, and those who primarily speak Spanish in other regions of our union, deserve the same top-quality health and safety programs as everyone else and we’re making sure they get it.”

The UAW Health and Safety Department has already developed three trainers (Health and Safety Local Union Discussion Leaders) from the ranks of Spanish-speaking UAW members. They will in turn instruct other trainers in Puerto Rico and elsewhere.

The need is great due to recent UAW organizing successes in Puerto Rico. Many new members and locals are getting their health and safety programs started. After receiving training from the UAW, the resident trainers will help their locals with understanding right-to-know laws, U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards, and drafting health and safety contract language.

This “train-the-trainer” model is used extensively by the UAW. It is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and OSHA to train UAW members in numerous health and safety topics.

Maria Enriquez, a Local 6000 member who is a technician in the revenue and reimbursement section of the Michigan Department of Community Health, trains the trainers. Enriquez said she’s proud that her union is at the forefront of health and safety training for Spanish-speaking members. She noted that Hispanics are a young and growing population in the United States.

“It’s common sense to try to reach people where they are at with their language skills,” the Local 6000 chief steward said.

Getting the correct translation from English to Spanish – and vice versa – is critical. There are also nuances among different Spanish dialects.

“The translation could throw you into a totally different meaning if you don’t understand the cultural background,” she said.

One cultural difference in training some Spanish-speaking workers could be to provide metric equivalents when talking about measurements. Much of Latin America uses the metric system, she said.

Puerto Rico has many office workers, and strategies to solve ergonomics problems will likely be one of the top issues, said Wilhelmina “Chachi” Torres-Wirth, a UAW Local 651 joint ergonomics technician at the Flint (Mich.) East Delphi plant.

She is helping to cross the cultural barrier by translating written materials into Spanish. Torres-Wirth said she wants workers to leave training with the notion that they always have a place to turn with health and safety questions.

Both Enriquez and Torres-Wirth said the need for training is great in Puerto Rico, but everywhere else as well, from San Juan to San Antonio to San Francisco.

“The people who are not represented, those are the ones I feel sorry for,” Torres-Wirth said.

Vince Piscopo

The UAW Health and Safety Department provides training in ergonomics and OSHA-required topics such as hazard communication, emergency response, lockout, confined space entry and fork lift. These and other topics help management meet its obligations at the worksite with no tuition charges.

Local unions should contact their regional offices for more information.