Happy Holidays!
LOSH End of Year Newsletter 2021
The end-of-year holiday season often serves as a time for rest and reflection, an opportunity to take stock of the year past and to look ahead to the days to come.
For many of us, 2021 proved to be another challenging year. Over 442,000 Americans lost their lives to COVID-19 since January, and the pandemic continued to upend everyone’s daily lives. Unprecedented heat waves and wildfires in California and other parts of the West served as stark reminders of our need to adapt to rapidly changing climate patterns. Political divisions nationally and abroad have left many of us worried about the future state of our democratic institutions. And the mental and emotional tolls on ourselves, our families, and our communities have been difficult to ignore.
Through it all, I’ve been tremendously proud of the work of the LOSH team in continuing to respond to the evolving needs of workers and impacted communities in Southern California. This holiday newsletter provides some taste of the work we have accomplished. The challenges of 2021 have only reinforced our commitment to advancing safe and healthy work — and to ensure that workers have a clear voice in those efforts. This goal has remained a driving motivator for our program for over 40 years.
Finally, we are tremendously grateful for the ongoing partnerships and collaborations with many of you. It’s your tireless efforts to fight for better conditions for workers in workplaces, community spaces, medical clinics, legislative halls — and yes, even on Zoom — that make our work possible. So on behalf of all of us at LOSH, we wish you and your families a safe, restful, and joyous holiday season.
A number of LOSH initiatives in 2021 continued to address the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 on frontline workers and communities in Southern California.
Under a statewide initiative led by the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, LOSH staff facilitated courses in English and Spanish on state-level COVID-19 protections, including the Cal/OSHA Emergency Temporary Standards for COVID-19 Prevention, and Supplemental Paid Sick Leave provisions. We also developed factsheets, audio messages, and other educational materials targeted to workers in high-risk sectors.
On the local level, LOSH was pleased to support the groundbreaking Public Health Councils initiative. The initiative aims to support workers in forming public health councils at their worksites to monitor compliance with the County’s COVID Health Officer Orders and to communicate potential violations to the LA County Department of Public Health. LOSH has worked closely with SoCalCOSH and DPH to provide training and technical assistance to certified worker organizations and worker-leaders in several targeted sectors, including garment manufacturing, warehousing, meatpacking, restaurants, and grocery stores.
Looking to the future, LOSH is providing support to a network of worker and community organizations in California and Arizona to serve as COVID Recovery Centers. The efforts are sponsored by the NIEHS Worker Training Program and aims to promote COVID-19 education, medical and prevention services, social support, and recovery efforts in highly impacted communities. These efforts will continue into at least 2023, promising support as we continue to weather the pandemic and its aftermath.
LOSH efforts continue to address the impacts of climate-related hazards for workers in our region. This year, we developed educational materials and conducted training on heat illness prevention and wildfire smoke protections for agricultural workers, day laborers and domestic workers, hamzat workers, community health promotoras, and school personnel. We are also partnering with SoCalCOSH, IDEPSCA, NDLON and other local worker centers to support a Southern California Disaster Response Hub with the capacity to respond to future extreme climate events. These training and capacity building activities for workers and worker organizations will be critical as we all adapt to changing climate patterns.
This year LOSH was excited to expand its hazmat training program to meet the needs of carwash workers in Los Angeles. Several LOSH staff and student interns partnered with the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center, to adapt our existing 24-hour Hazardous Waste Operations curriculum for this workforce.
The adapted course was provided in Spanish over six weeks through a combination of virtual and in-person sessions. The course teaches workers how to identify, handle, and store hazardous chemicals; how to identify and control other hazards they may encounter at carwash facilities, such as blood-borne pathogens, heat, and heavy machinery; and how to respond to small chemical spills. The training also provided hands-on components related to hazmat safety equipment and car detailing techniques using “green” products that are safer for human health and the environment.
In September, LOSH hosted its first-ever Spanish-language training on Cal/OSHA’s Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) standard. Our IIPP courses are targeted to small business owners to help them create effective injury and illness prevention programs at their worksites. We added a Spanish-language version of the course this year in recognition of the large number of Spanish-speaking small business owners in Southern California and across the state.
Topics for the course include how to identify and control workplace hazards and how to involve employees in maintaining safe workplaces. Key partners for this training include State Fund and Cal/OSHA Consultation Services. We look forward to offering additional Spanish-language IIPP courses in the coming years.
LOSH held twelve School Action for Safety and Health (SASH) training courses in 2021. These free classes are designed to guide school personnel in developing and implementing effective health and safety programs in their school districts that meet the requirements of Cal/OSHA’s Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) standard. This year’s classes featured a supplemental component that also addressed requirements under the Emergency Temporary Standards for COVID-19 Prevention.
In February, LOSH Director Kevin Riley and UCLA MPH graduate Rosario Majano published the research paper, “Using workers’ compensation claims to investigate occupational injuries among residential day laborers and domestic workers,” in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. The article summarizes data from over 5,000 workers’ compensation claims submitted on behalf of day laborers and domestic workers hired by homeowners or families in California between 2008 and 2018. The paper provides insights into common work-related injuries and illnesses within this largely informal workforce and highlights the need for health and safety protections for workers in residential settings. Read the full article here.
LOSH collaborated with the UCLA Labor Center, the UC Berkeley Labor Center, and the UC Berkeley Labor Occupational Health Program to investigate COVID-19 risks in the fast food industry in Los Angeles. The study found that working conditions in many fast food establishments lead to increased risks of COVID-19 transmission. These risks in turn contribute to community-wide disparities in COVID-19 outcomes, given that the vast majority of fast food workers in Los Angeles are women and people of color. Read the full report here.
This summer saw the return of the national Occupational Health Internship Program (OHIP) after a one-year hiatus due to the pandemic. Eighteen interns participated in projects in several cities around the country, including Los Angeles.
LOSH helped to co-host this year’s virtual OHIP orientation event, which featured workshops, activities, and presentations from a variety of workers, occupational safety and health professionals, and OHIP alumni. The Los Angeles intern teams carried out projects in collaboration with SoCalCOSH, the California Domestic Worker Coalition, CLEAN Carwash Worker Center, and the Los Angeles Black Worker Center.
Lizbeth Diaz joined the LOSH team in June as our new Hazmat Outreach and Education Specialist. Lizbeth is responsible for overseeing our hazmat-related training initiatives, including the 40-hour Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) course, 24-hour Hazardous Waste Operations course, and 8-hour Refreshers. Lizbeth received her Masters in Public Health with a focus in Environmental Health Sciences and Industrial Hygiene from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health in June 2021. Read more here.
Dylan Portillo joined LOSH in September as Health and Safety Program Assistant. He provides both administrative and logistical support to various projects, including those focused on COVID-19 prevention, school safety and health, and workplace violence. Dylan received his BA in Environmental Studies from UCLA in June 2021. Read more here.
Esmeralda Limeta is the newest member of the LOSH team, having joined us as a Project Coordinator earlier in December. She will be working to support various health and safety training initiatives in both English and Spanish, including some of our core worker leadership development initiatives. Esmeralda brings several years of worker and community health experience in a variety of settings. Read more here.