Jornaleros Unidos Con El Pueblo (Day Laborers United with the Community)

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bhatia R
• Description:
  Jornaleros Unidas mn el Pueblo (Day Laborers United with the Community), or UNIDOS, was a four year partnership between the San Francisco Department of Public Health's Program on Health, Equity, and Sustainability and La Raza Centro Legal's Day Labor Program and Women's Collective. Funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, UNIDOS sought to address occupational health disparities among day laborers and domestic workers in San Francisco. The UNIDOS Collaboration is one of the first attempts by a local health department to engage with day laborers, domestic workers and their supporting community organizations in community-based participatory research. The overall aim of the project was to "improve working conditions for day laborers through strategies that reflect the knowledge, needs, and participation of day laborers." An overarching strategy of UNIDOS was to create a communicative and reflective process through a "community council" that actively engaged the proposed stakeholders in collaborative efforts to improve hazardous working conditions, day laborers' health, and their social and structural context. A related expected outcome was improved and sustained capacity of institutions and communities to address day laborers' health and working conditions. Although the proposed process did not occur as originally described in the UNIDOS grant proposal, the activities and projects resulted in numerous positive outcomes and lessons learned from the four year collaboration. Some of the notable interventions include development and implementation of: A day laborer-led legal clinic that has recovered over $330,000 in unpaid wages; Over 80 peer-led vocational trainings on construction skills and safe, health), and dignified domestic work; A 10 week United Workers' Course designed to build workers' knowledge of rights and leadership skills; A participatory research study that documented conditions faced by 280 Bay Area domestic workers and led to the introduction of statewide legislation requiring overtime pay for personal attendants; 12 Digital Stories profiling day laborer and domestic workers' lives, work hazards, and societal contributions; A pilot Occupational Safety and Health Consultant position to conduct outreach and awareness raising in local clinics; and service agencies related to immigrant workers' health & safety; Incorporation of a Safe and Dignified Cleaning Training into the Women's Collective ongoing programming to train domestic workers throughout the Bay Area and distribute the curriculum nationally; Ongoing collaboration between the partnering organizations to address gaps in workers compensation. Some of the cross-cutting positive outcomes include: Increased understanding by UNIDOS participants about the living and working conditions faced by San Francisco day laborers and domestic workers, and how those conditions impact their health; Increased number of activities and interventions designed by and for day laborers and domestic workers to protect health and promote safe work practices; Strengthening of workers' leadership skills and capacity to advocate and defend their rights as workers; Increased collaboration with other non-profit, service providing, advocary and government organizations. Some of the major challenges encountered during the UNIDOS collaboration included: Failure by UNIDOS partners to develop a consensus-based partnership; Challenges of working with the marginalized and transient day laborer population; Conflicts over the need for new organizational structures; Lack of communication about funding and resources and lack of participatory research and evaluation. Despite challenges and relational conflicts during the project, SFDPH and LRCL have developed an enduring and mutually respectful partnership. Partnership evaluation reveals that both SFDPH and LRCL staff felt they have learned lessons that they will transfer to future partnerships and collaborations, in addition to their continued relationship with each other. As noted by one participant "through all the things we did right and all the things we did wrong, we can certainly glean some valuable principles for doing participatory research." [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Community Health Services Healthcare Disparities Health Promotion Occupational Health Public Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Community Based Community Health Health Disparities Health Promotion Information Dissemination Public Health
• Series:
  Grant Final Reports
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Final Grant Report
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OEP - Office of Extramural Programs
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-41
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20060186
• Citation:
  Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, R25-OH-008146, 2009 Mar; :1-41
• Contact Point Address:
  San Francisco Department of Public Health, 101 Grove Street, #308 San Francisco, CA 94102
• Email:
  rajiv.bhatia@sfdph.org
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2009
• NORA Priority Area:
  Work Environment and Workforce: Special Populations
• Performing Organization:
  San Francisco Department of Public Health
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20030930
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• End Date:
  20081230
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:54772b91684ec225f1ef43b66bab87c9e72e764c5fed6c04af372fe040c66d118dab1de4db512a9e4c27f5d7678f80f303f0edf22f15c3baad3e89dce2799b4b
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/218994/cdc_218994_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 4.01 MB ]