TANYA BASOK, ALAN HALL, AND ELOY RIVAS1

Claiming Rights to Workplace Safety: Latin

American Immigrant Workers in Southwestern
Ontario
Abstract
Drawing on the studies of citizenship practices and health and safety literature, this paper explores
the reporting of workplace injuries and hazards among Latin American immigrants in Southwestern
Ontario. The paper examines how (under-)reporting is shaped by three conditions: the knowledge
of workers rights, job (in)security, and ethnic identities. Recognizing knowledge as a significant
factor which enables or constrains the capacity to claim ones citizenship rights, we demonstrate
that even when Latin American immigrant workers develop a good understanding of their rights,
many are still unable to assert them. We argue that this lack of rights access reflects the intersection of two relevant factors workplace (in)security and ethnic and immigrant identities which
discourage their reporting. In particular, we demonstrate that since Latin American immigrants
often find themselves in subordinate positions in the Canadian labour market, they choose not to
report injuries and unsafe working environments for fear of discipline and reprisals. In addition,
immigrant, regional, ethnic, and home country identities, all of which can limit or contradict a full
sense of citizenship, appear to exert some influence on the way workers understand their workplace
rights. The paper is based on 44 in-depth interviews conducted with Latin American immigrants
in 2010.

Rsum
Cet article analyse les dclarations sur les dangers et les accidents dans le milieu du travail parmi
les immigrants latino-amricains du sud-ouest de lOntario, en sappuyant sur les tudes des
pratiques citoyennes et sur la bibliographie dans le domaine de la sant et la scurit. Larticle
examine la manire dont ces dclarations sont influences par trois facteurs : la connaissance des
droits des travailleurs, la scurit demploi et les identits ethniques. Bien que la connaissance soit
un facteur significatif qui favorise ou empche la capacit daffirmer ses droits de citoyennet, les
auteurs dmontrent que, mme quand les travailleurs migrants dorigine latino-amricaine dveloppent une bonne comprhension de leurs droits, beaucoup dentre eux ont de la difficult les
exercer. Les auteurs expliquent que ce manque daccs aux droits reflte lintersection de deux
facteurs importants linscurit dans le lieu de travail et les identits ethniques et immigrantes
qui dcouragent leur exercice. En particulier, on dmontre que, du fait que les immigrants latinoamricains se trouvent souvent dans des positions subordonne dans le march du travail canadien, ils choisissent de ne pas dclarer les accidents et les conditions dangereuses des milieux
professionnels en raison de la crainte des sanctions. Aussi, les identits immigrantes, rgionales,
ethniques ou du pays dorigine, toutes lesquelles peuvent limiter ou contredire un sens plein de la
citoyennet, semblent avoir une influence sur la faon dont les travailleurs comprennent leurs
droits. Larticle porte sur 44 entrevues en profondeur ralises auprs dimmigrants latino-amricains en 2010.

CES Volume 46 Number 3 (2014), 35-53

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Immigrants learn, interpret, and redefine the meaning of citizenship in a new country.
Although definitions of citizenship vary, they are commonly related to a combination
of collectively shared identity, a bundle of rights and responsibilities, as well as political membership and participation (Isin and Wood 1999; Wiener 1997; Lister 2003;
Somers 2008; Benhabib 2007). The notion of citizenship presumes its universal application (Marshall 1950 [1964]). Yet, in reality, various groups of people have been
excluded from its benefits and privileges, and it is through diverse forms of collective action that some of these people have achieved greater inclusion. Recognizing
the discrepancy between the citizenship ideal and the lived experiences, researchers
have explored how Latin American migrants attempt to increase political participation, express belonging to the Canadian society, and enhance access to such citizenship rights as education, housing, and recognition of ethno-cultural differences
(e.g., Armony et al. 2004; Veronis 2010 and 2013; Landolt 2007; Landolt et al. 2011;
Veronis 2007). At the same time, the negotiation and assertion of workplace rights
by Latin American immigrant workers have not received much attention. In addition to other social rights identified by Marshall (1950 [1964]), workplace rights
contribute to citizens welfare and security, and as such, it is important to understand how these rights are understood and exercised.
In this article we address this issue by turning our attention to health and safety
rights and how they are understood and practiced by some Latin American immigrants living in Southwestern Ontario. More specifically, we examine the extent to
which Latin American immigrants report workplace injuries and hazards to their
supervisors and other authorities. We argue that whether these workers exercise their
right to report injuries and unhealthy working conditions is related to three conditions: their knowledge of workers rights; their subjective assessment of the power
they have (or lack) to assert these rights in the context of job (in)security; and their
ethnic identities.

PRACTICING CITIZENSHIP
In his seminal work, T.H. Marshall (1950 [1964]) examines the evolution of rights
in Western societies from civil (the right to private property, freedom of expression,
and access to justice) to political (the right to political participation and free and
democratic elections) to social. For Marshall, social rights evolved in the 20th century and refer to a modicum of economic welfare and security to the right to share

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to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilized being (Marshall 1950
[1964], 69). Although not often conceptualized in this manner, workplace health and
safety protections can be seen as an example of the social rights that Marshall discussed.
Until the late 1800s, Canadian workers had to rely almost exclusively on antiquated civil litigation laws which provided little protection for workers in terms of
health and safety regulations or compensation for injuries. By the early 1900s, public laws in the form of early protective factory and other industry legislation were
introduced which provided workers with some basic rights with respect to health
and safety along with an enforcement inspectorate (Fudge and Tucker 2001; Tucker
1990). Workers Compensation laws were also introduced which traded off the workers
individual right to sue employers for a no-fault financial compensation system sustained by collective employer payroll deductions, a clear example of what Marshall
meant by social rights (Barth 1982; Sullivan and Frank 2000). It took some considerable time before additional gains were made but, in the 1970s, workers in most
Canadian jurisdictions also gained some potentially significant political rights
within the workplace. Under the rubric of increased worker influence in health and
safety decisions, legislation gave workers the right to demand information on health
and safety hazards, the right to refuse unsafe work without penalty, and the right to
participate in monitoring, assessing and advising through worker representatives
and joint labour/management health and safety committees (Tucker 2003). At the
same time, however, these laws established legal responsibilities for workers around
reporting and correcting recognized hazards.
The gradual recognition of the rights of workers to a safe and healthy working
environment as entitlements based on notions of collective equality, rather than on
individual freedoms, reflects the consolidation of what Marshall denominated as
social rights (Dwyer 2003, 7). These collective rights are, from Marshalls perspective, an important element of citizenship with its purported aim to guarantee a basic
collective wellbeing in modern societies. However, formal rights constitute only one
element of citizenship. Conditions required to translate formally granted rights into
practice is what some researchers (e.g., Wiener 1997) call access. As many analysts
recognize, while rights may be available de jure, the de facto access may be denied
because certain means needed to exercise them such as proper education, communication, transportation, availability of affordable childcare, or accessibility for people with disabilities, may not be available (e.g., Wiener 1997, 535; Walby 1994; Lister
2003; Somers 2008; Devlin and Pothier 2006) and it is through political action that
individuals and groups assert their right to inclusion. Thus, citizenship is not merely
a status, but a set of practices through which individuals and groups claim legally
granted formal rights, and advance new rights (Isin and Wood 1999, 4; Isin and
Nielsen 2008; Stasiulis and Bakan 1997; Wiener 1997; Somers 2008).

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As several analysts have pointed out, the knowledge of rights is the first step in
asserting them (Denvir et al. 2012; Basok 2004; Kissoon 2013). However, even when
the knowledge of rights is present, other conditions may prevent those aware of their
rights from practicing them. Much of the scholarship on citizenship focuses on the
way the state creates or limits the conditions required to exercise citizenship (see, for
instance, Marshall 1950 [1964]; Wiener 1999; Kivisto and Faist 2007). More recently,
the impact of market governance under neo-liberalism on the states commitment
and ability to sustain the practice of social citizenship has been of particular concern
to some scholars (e.g., Falk 2000; Somers 2008; Brodie 2008; Turner 2001). Under
the pretext that state welfare undermines self-reliance, social citizenship came under
serious attack under neoliberalism (Revi 2014). According to Peck, Theodore, and
Brenner, neoliberal practices were used to justify the deregulation of state control
over industry, assaults on organized labor, the reduction of corporate taxes, the downsizing and/or privatization of public services and assets, the dismantling of welfare
programs, the enhancement of international capital mobility, and the intensification
of inter-locality competition (2009, 50), all of which have greatly increased labour
market competition and labour insecurity.
Insecurity in the labour market is one important reason individuals may lack
the power to assert their rights. The question of power to assert ones rights within
the labour market is particularly relevant to occupational health and safety. While
the participative orientation of current Canadian occupational health and safety law
implies that workers are supposed to be informed about and capable of reacting to
hazards in their workplaces, as well as being able to report injuries without fear of
negative consequences, there is a considerable body of evidence indicating substantial under-reporting of both injuries and hazards even when workers are aware of
their rights (Gray 2002; Hall 1999; MacEachen 2000; Scherzer et al. 2005; Shannon
and Lowe 2002; Quinlan and Mayhew 1999). A good chunk of this literature also
suggests that employment insecurity and inequality, both major trends in the
Canadian labour market these days, are significant sources of worker under-reporting of hazards and injuries (Ontario Ministry of Labour 2010; Law Commission of
Ontario 2012; Lewchuk et al. 2011; Weil 2010). Several analysts have also pointed out
that certain segments of the population are differentially vulnerable to these circumstances of precarity and powerlessness, notably minorities, migrants and immigrants
(Brown 2006). Much of the evidence, mainly in the U.S., seems to support the argument that under-reporting is more widespread among migrants, immigrants and
minorities (Brown 2006; Gravel et al. 2010; Gravel 2008; Scherzer et al. 2005; Basok
2004; Arcury and Quandt 1998; Halfacre-Hitchcock et al. 2006). Brown (2006), for
example, argues that immigrant workers in the U.S. are consciously accepting
injuries and hazards because of the relative ease with which employers can dispense

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with their services if they report (see also Scherzer et al. 2005). Some studies, again
mainly in the U.S., have suggested that non-immigrant racial minorities are also
much more likely to under-report, with particular reference to native born African
Americans and Latinos (Madera and Chang 2011).
Although some analysts have also pointed to a lack of knowledge and uncertainty about the application and use of rights in the workplace (Gravel et al. 2010;
Madera and Chang 2011), the prevailing theoretical explanation for under-reporting in these studies has been that immigrants, migrants and minorities are more
fearful because of the non-union precarious types of employment in which they
tend to work and the financial insecurity that accompanies precarious employment.
As well, discrimination and racism have been identified as important factors in
shaping their responses to working conditions and injuries (Acosta-Leon et al. 2006;
Berdahl and McQuillan 2008). These arguments are well grounded theoretically
(Roberts et al. 2004) in the broader immigration and labour research. This research
points to racialized levels of exploitation and insecurity which many argue is getting
worse in the context of neoliberalism and globalization (Basok 2004; Soni-Sinha and
Yates 2013; Weil 2010). There is also evidence that the acceptance of injuries and hazards is tied to the ways in which workers construct acceptable, necessary or normal levels of risk and injury (Bellaby 1999; Hall 2007; Wicks 2002; Madera and Chang 2011).
Significantly, these constructions are often linked to workers identities and concerns
about social acceptance (Breslin et al. 2007; Hall 1996).
In this paper, we build on both the citizenship and health and safety literatures
by exploring how the knowledge of rights, job (in)security, and ethnic identities
shape immigrant worker reporting. We conceptualize knowledge as a significant
factor which enables or constrains the capacity to act while also showing that even
after a period of time in Canada, workers often have only partial knowledge and are
uncertain about aspects of what they know. We also demonstrate that even when
workers develop a good understanding of their rights, many Latin American immigrants are still unable to assert them. We argue that this lack of access to rights
reflects the intersection of two relevant factors workplace (in)security and ethnic
and immigrant identities which affect their reporting in different ways.

THE STUDY
The analysis reported in this article is based on qualitative interviews conducted in
2010 with 44 immigrant workers from Latin America (including Cuba) in Southwestern Ontario. A snowball sampling procedure was employed, using a Latin
American worker support group as the main starting point for the sample. The qualitative interviews were focused on gaining respondents accounts of how they

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responded to injuries and hazards and their explanations for those responses.
Workers were also asked a series of questions about the conditions of their supervision, control and autonomy, employer and union commitment to health and safety
and relations with workers and managers. Each interview concluded with questions
about their own ethnic, immigrant, minority and gender identity, their perception
of racialized relations and division within the workplace, and their views on minority/non-minority and gender differences in reporting. Interviews were recorded and
transcribed and lasted an average of 70 minutes.
The sample consisted of 28 men and 16 women from a variety of countries.
Slightly more than half of the interviewed workers (53%) were from Colombia and
about a quarter (25.5%) were from El Salvador. The remaining workers were from
Cuba, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. The length of residency in
Canada varied among them: 36% of the workers had lived in Canada for more than
10 years; 25% for 5 to 9 years, and 39% for less than 5 years.
Our study participants clearly distinguished themselves from Canadians, by which
they meant people born in Canada. There were two social constructions which workers
used to set themselves apart from Canadians. First, workers identified themselves as
immigrants or, if recent immigrants, as newcomers. The second area of identity construction that workers tied to reporting revolved around national or regional categories
of shared language and cultural differences. With the exception of seven workers who
preferred the Hispano identity and five others who preferred their nationality as identity (Mexican, Salvadorian, Cuban), most Spanish speaking workers identified themselves as Latina/os, often in addition to their birth country national identity.
At the time of the interview, they were employed in a variety of occupations in
such jobs as: administrative assistant, nurse, counselor, medical office assistant, junior
chef, kitchen assistant, call center operator, truck driver, truck mechanic, engineer, janitor, graphic designer, vendor, food processor, sales manager, construction worker,
painter, roofer, polisher, lab technician, waitress and server, vegetable packer, plant
coordinator of industrial waste, general operator, mold designer, quality control
inspector, and personal support worker (PSW). More than half of the interviewed
workers (25 out of 44) were employed in permanent full-time jobs and eight others in
temporary full-time jobs. The remaining workers were employed part-time. Among
the interviewed workers, four were hired by Temporary Help Agencies that placed
them with specific employers. Only 17 workers (39%) felt their jobs were secure or relatively secure, while the remaining 27 (61%) experienced an increasing level of uncertainty about their future employment even when employed in full-time permanent
jobs under labour contracts. Among the interviewed workers, 14 (32%) held union
jobs at the time of the interview and 30 (68%) were employed in non-union jobs.
Additionally, four other workers had previously worked in unionized jobs.

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WORKER RIGHTS: REPORTING WORKPLACE INJURIES

AND HEALTH HAZARDS IN ONTARIO
As noted above, Ontario workers have legal rights pertaining to the reporting of
injuries and hazards which impose legal responsibilities on employers to accept and
act on those reports without reprisals (OHSA 1990; WSIA 1997). Workers also have
the right to report their injuries and concerns directly to the government agency
authorities where the employer is failing to report. With respect to injuries, when a
workers injury requires external medical intervention, time off or reduced duties,
the worker must report to the supervisor, and the employer is then required to submit
a Form 7 to the Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB) detailing the injury. The
worker can submit a separate form (Form 6) if they do not want to sign the
employer form or if the employer refuses to submit a form 7. If a medical doctor is
involved, the physician is required to submit a third form separately (Form 8). The
company is required by law to keep a written record of more minor first aid injuries
and many companies have their own forms and reporting systems. If no first aid is
involved, the company has no legal obligation to keep a record. As such, if workers use
their own band aids, burn ointment or their own pain medicine, the employer is essentially freed of any legal obligation to record the injury even if they are aware of it.
With respect to hazards, workers not only have the right to report, they have legal
obligations to do so. If a worker sees a hazard and does not report it to his/her supervisor and, an injury then occurs to another worker, the first worker can be liable to
prosecution, as has happened several times since the legislation was first introduced in
1978. There is no legal requirement for a written report by the worker but many firms
have formal reporting systems for workers and supervisors. Along with the individual
right to refuse unsafe work, workers in workplaces with 20 or more workers can also
report to worker representatives who can report to the joint health and safety committee. Once an issue has been raised at the committee level, the company is required to
respond to the concern. Workers also have the right to bring a concern directly to a
Ministry of Labour inspector (OHSA 1990), although this is very rare.
As these rights imply, injury and hazard reporting can be understood as operating at a number of levels including, of course, reporting directly to government
authorities. However, in this paper, we focus principally on worker reports to the
employer, whether in the form of a written report or an oral report to a supervisor,
manager or official worker representative. Although we asked in interviews whether
the reports of injuries included the completion of a formal compensation form or a
formal written report of a hazard, including a work refusal or a complaint to a ministry inspector, this kind of reporting was infrequent, hence our decision to focus
more broadly on whether any form of report was made to the employer through

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management or worker representatives. In effect, the question we are exploring here

is whether workers keep injuries or hazard concerns to themselves or report them in
some way to the employer.
Given the range of different kinds of workplaces and occupations in this study,
interviewed workers identified various forms of injuries and hazards experienced at
work. Among the more common injuries were such chronic conditions as musculoskeletal disorders (e.g., back, knee, and shoulder pain, carpal tunnel), skin disorders, stress, and headaches, while the more common acute injury events were burns,
cuts, bruises, crushed fingers, and sprains. Among the hazardous conditions were:
fumes, fall hazards, slippery floors or roads, heat, hazardous machinery, aggressive
patients and customers, and exposure to bacteria. Although many workers characterized their workplaces as safe, especially those who worked in offices, virtually
every worker identified some significant concerns about hazards. Most of the workers had not had what they considered to be a serious acute injury, tending to point
instead to smaller incidents such as cuts, bruises or burns. In some workplaces such
as restaurants, construction or manufacturing, these cuts, bruises and burns were
seen as commonplace, weekly and sometimes even daily. The lines drawn by many
workers in terms of seriousness of acute injuries tended to revolve around whether
medical diagnosis or treatment was required and/or whether the injury significantly
impeded their immediate capacity to work. In the case of serious injuries requiring
medical treatment, reports were usually made, which is less than surprising inasmuch as the medical authorities are legally required to report any workplace injuries
that come to their attention. Minor cuts and bruises, in particular, were generally
ignored or treated by the workers themselves which also means that on site first aid
was not administered and no formal record was made. Sometimes workers still
mentioned the incident to supervisors but, more often than not, there was no oral
report either. Most workers felt no need to report what they characterized as minor
injuries, even when employers required the reporting of all injuries.
Musculoskeletal problems were very common across the full spectrum of workplaces and occupations, with back, shoulder and hand injuries being the most common. Workers tended to see these injuries as more serious either because the current
physical effects were substantial (pain level or physical restrictions) or because of concerns about the possible long-term impact. Many workers were aware of repetitive
strain injuries as an occupational risk. Despite these concerns, along with minor
cuts, burns and bruises, musculoskeletal problems and the hazards causing them were
widely under-reported (see also Tarasuk and Eakin 1995). In the sections that follow,
we explore why these migrant workers tended to under-report their injuries and hazards. First, we question whether the lack of knowledge about workers rights was an
important reason behind under-reporting. Then we turn to the discussion of the

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impact of workplace power relations. Finally, we explore how the workers ethnic
identities shape their tendency to report or accept injuries and hazards.

ACCESS TO RIGHTS: DO IMMIGRANT WORKERS KNOW THEIR RIGHTS?

Many immigrant workers within our sample reported that upon coming to Canada
they were unaware of their rights and ways of claiming them. At times, they even
lacked understanding of whether some of their work practices are in violation of
laws or acceptable principles. As a Cuban female hotel cleaning lady recollects:
When you first come to this country you lack knowledge about the Canadian culture. You feel a bit lost and you think that everything is good or normal. You start
working in a place like the one I started at, and I thought that I was doing fine.
Now looking back at it I know that plenty of things were wrong (Interview 34).
As workers describe it, this lack of knowledge or uncertainty about what these
rights entail and what protections they offer were important constraints on their
reporting. The male Salvadoran worker employed in stamping production puts it
this way: Lack of information makes you fear that if you report, they would take
away your job. You dont know that you can appeal that decision.... You dont know
because you are not informed (Interview 1).
A Colombian male greenhouse worker believed that unlike Canadians who, in
his view, know their rights, immigrants are unaware of health and safety protection:
I would say that the same lesion happens to a Canadian or something, he would stop, and
because he knows the system, and he has grown in the system and he knows his rights.
Lets say, he stops and complains. He knows that the employer cannot push him and cannot do certain things.... Not in our case, you keep on working. You have pain but you
continue working (Interview 8).

Some workers feel that management takes advantage of immigrants ignorance

of their rights, an ignorance which they often relate to language. A Salvadoran male
quality controller observes, they want to take advantage of the immigrants, they
think that they [immigrants] do not know the law that protects them, or at times
because they lack the language. This finding is consistent with several studies which
have linked language problems to Hispanic and other immigrant under-reporting
(Acosta-Leon et al. 2006; Gravel 2008; Madera and Chang 2011).
Our participants report that with the passage of time, they tended to gain
knowledge of their workplace rights and the necessary procedures to access them.
Indeed, a clear majority of workers in our sample (36 out of 44 or 82%) indicate
some awareness of their rights to report injuries or hazards to their employer.
Workers knowledge of their rights came from a variety of sources, including

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friends and coworkers, worker health and safety representatives, WSIB flyers and
posters, and company and/or trade union training. Co-workers were especially significant to many workers or as a unionized hotel worker puts it, my coworkers are constantly telling me to report (Interview 22). Although less common in precarious
employment situations, some workers also cite their employer or specific management
representatives as important sources of knowledge. A Colombian male mechanic
explains how he learned about health and safety procedures from his employers: I had
employers who wanted me to know and they sent me to take courses, like first aid.
Besides they give you that green book [OHS Act and Regulations] that covers the accidents or the safety in the workplace.... So you read that book and you realize that as
much as you do, the employer also has responsibilities (Interview 40).
Those workers who received no employer orientation, training or explicit policy communication by the company often learn their rights directly through injury
experiences. A Colombian male marble cutter recollects that when he had an injury
he went to the health centre. Even though he was unaware of his rights, the health
centre knew what to do.
Here it was because the health centre reported the injury. I got there and said I had a
work accident and they automatically did the whole report. When the company saw this
then they felt obligated to give their report too. But I didnt do anything; I mean I never
wrote anything, I never reported anything to them because I didnt know that [protection] existed ... (Interview 31).

Armed with knowledge, some workers clearly frame their reporting decisions in
terms of their rights, even expressing confidence that the laws in Canada protect
them. Echoing sentiments expressed by a few workers, a male Salvadoran worker
employed in stamping reflects, When something is really unsafe, by law I can refuse
to do it and they cannot push me into doing it (Interview 1). As this implies, workers often see themselves as having the same rights as all other Canadians that being
an immigrant does not mean limited or only partial access to rights. As happened in
the above case, some of the interviewed workers clearly assert their rights on this
basis, challenging their employer on injuries and hazards even in the face of overt
employer resistance. For example, the Salvadoran worker tells us that his employer
wanted him to return to work to lighter duties as soon as he came back from the hospital where he was taken because of his injury. The worker responded to this demand
in the following manner:
No, no, no, I said Im going home. Who says Im staying here? I told them I am going
home. And fortunately I was close to that WSIB poster and I said, Havent you seen that
poster? You gave me first aid before I left. They gave me gauze to stop the bleeding, right?
You sent me to the hospital, and this is the third point listed in the poster that I am bring-

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ing to your attention. And the fourth point is that you have to pay me for the rest of the
day because I am going home. And I went home (Interview 1).

A young Colombian male engineer talks about his decision to refuse dangerous
work in his previous job: You have the right to refuse unsafe jobs and in fact, I did
it once. I was working temporarily and I was asked to climb up to organize a few
shelves. I thought no, I will fall from up there and so I didnt do it and I left
(Interview 16).
However, while there were several other accounts of workers challenging a
working condition or reporting an injury, most of the workers in this study routinely
under-report many injuries and hazards, clearly indicating that the knowledge of
rights does not mean that workers exercise their rights in every hazardous or injury
situation. This then leads to our next question: if workers know their rights, why do
they not necessarily assert them when they have substantive concerns about injuries
and hazards? The Salvadoran stamping plant worker reflects on this very question:
If you go to any company you will see a paper from WSIB where it says what steps
to follow to report an accident and everything. The information is there. Why dont
people do it? (Interview 1).

ASSERTING RIGHTS IN THE CONTEXT OF EMPLOYMENT INSECURITY

As numerous studies have demonstrated, the Canadian labour market has undergone
substantial changes in the last two to three decades, most notably declining unionization and increasing amounts of precarious employment, including more temporary
agency employment and self-employment (Camfield 2011; Vosko 2006). Although
there are indications that these conditions are generalizing across all groups in
Canadian society, immigrants are consistently over-represented in non-union and precarious employment (Lewchuk et al. 2011). These developments have fueled a growing health and safety literature (Lewchuk et al. 2011; Underhill and Quinlan 2012)
which seeks to link employment precarity, the racialization of employment, and
worker health, organized around the premise that workers are forced by employment
circumstances to accept dangerous working conditions. Consistent with this literature,
our findings indicate that many workers see themselves as relatively powerless to access
their reporting rights because of the fear of employer reprisals. The fear of losing a job
and, for those in part-time employment, getting reduced hours, are prominent reasons
mentioned by some workers who express concerns similar to the following:
It is very difficult to touch on those [safety] topics because, on my side is like putting
at risk the job and so one rather keeps quiet (Interview 29, a Colombian male worker
employed part-time as a labourer in newspaper printing).

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Lets say there are 40 people doing that task, right? Maybe 25 to 30 have the problem and
are quiet. Maybe 5 counting me are taking medication and everybody says that it
hurts. But no one speaks out because we fear that they wont schedule us for work anymore (Interview 2, a Colombian male employed in vegetable canning).

This fear of reprisal is especially evident among workers in precarious employment situations such as temporary agency and contract work (Underhill and
Quinlan 2012). A Salvadoran female medical office assistant, whose contract is
renewed every three months, fears that if she reported her musculoskeletal problem
to her supervisor, her contract would not be renewed. She expects that they would
say, well she has a small injury already, I rather have someone who has no injury
(Interview 37). The part-time Colombian male labourer employed in newspaper
printing, although unionized, also feels that reporting an injury was pointless
because, as he puts it, this would be something that would indeed generate rejection, [management would think] that one is presenting excuses not to work
(Interview 29).
For some workers, the fear of reporting workplace injuries and hazards is
related to past experiences. An Argentine female worker employed in marketing discusses her past employment: I mean, we always told them everything that was
wrong but they never did anything to improve the conditions or they simply thought
that we were trouble-makers who did not want to do the job and that we were always
complaining too much. Because of that they laid me off (Interview 32). Similarly, a
Colombian female worker (Interview 6) tells us that her former employer did not
want her to report an injury to WSIB and when she did, he fired her.
The lack of a union is often recognized as a key factor underlying the workers
vulnerability to employer reprisal, including, in particular, the capacity of the
employer to terminate their employment for reporting. The Salvadoran worker, for
instance, states very clearly that where there is no union, the under-reporting is due
to fear to lose your job (Interview 1). At the same time, however, there are also a
number of unionized workers who under-report because they view their unions as
weak or ineffective, offering them little protection against reprisals. The union there
has no presence. They didnt even have the kindness to call me when I had my
accident, to say hey what happened to you? Ill help you to report (Interview 29,
the Colombian newspaper printing labourer).
This finding underscores an important argument in the labour studies literature
that declining unionization within neoliberalism is not just about fewer unionized
workers but also weaker unions with limited negotiating power and declining capacities to restrain employer disciplinary practices (Camfield 2011). Nevertheless, it is
worth noting that within our sample, unionized workers are much more likely to
report injuries than non-unionized workers. In particular, while 75% of unionized

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workers in our sample indicate that they have reported at least one injury or health
concern to their employer, only 25% of the non-unionized workers have done so.
In some cases, especially in unionized contexts, it is not necessarily the overt
threat of dismissal but rather the verbal discipline and supervisors disapproval
which workers perceive when they or others try to report. The Colombian male marble cutter explains that he preferred not to report accidents in order to avoid being
scolded by his boss (Interview 31). A Salvadoran male quality control inspector provides a similar explanation for non-reporting:
Because of the law they had to fill out the report, but you could see from the expression
on their face that they were not too happy. I think that they [other workers] were also
scared of the supervisor and the manager, especially of going to see them. They would
say that they did not want to go to the office and see that man, so they just would not
go many just did not want to have to see that mans face (Interview 3).

However, workers were still more likely to report injuries and hazards when
they saw their union as protection against their dismissal. As the Salvadoran male
quality control inspector says, Later when the union came, they started to work on
it and the company no longer disciplined you as before (Interview 3). A male
Colombian maintenance working puts it this way when discussing his previous
union job: Within the company there was a person in charge who was the leader
of all of the ones who were unionized. And so he was in charge of reporting everything according to the law. And so that was like a pressure to the manager
(Interview 17).
The Salvadoran stamping plant worker tells us that before his job was unionized, the employer discouraged the workers from reporting injuries to WSIB and
offered to pay them compensation. He goes on to say, but when the union came in,
all that was over [and] the boss finally understood that we could not do that anymore and so yes, it has to be reported (Interview 1).
However, even in unionized jobs, some immigrant workers continue to fear that
they would lose a job if they reported injuries because they are immigrants. As such,
it is in this context where we see the status of the immigrant as being understood by
some workers on its own as an important political constraint on their rights. A
Cuban temporary janitor in a unionized factory explains why he chooses not to
report his back injuries despite advice from his union to do otherwise:
I am an immigrant and I am working in a place where a lot of Canadians would like to
work. So how can I afford to call attention to my problems? If I do, I would be singled
out and in the end, in a week or two weeks they would tell me (sound of snapping fingers) leave because there is nothing else for you here (Interview 33).

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Canadian Ethnic Studies/tudes ethniques au Canada

A unionized nurse (Interview 43) puts it in a similar vein when discussing why
she and other fellow immigrant workers do not report concerns about lifting
patients: An immigrant cannot see injuries from lifting as a problem. A lot of immigrants in my workplace accommodate more than that, it is so easy to replace them.

IDENTITY AND REPORTING

While concerns about knowledge and the political capacity to act tend to be quite
central to the links that workers make between their immigrant and Latino identities, workers also often talk about different cultural constructions of risk which they
tie to being an immigrant and/or a Latino:
I think that in general, newcomers have a tendency to take more risks than when one has
already [lived here for some time]. I think this is very well identified in the North
American culture that you try not to take unnecessary risks. And so depending on how
much you have acculturated here, you take more or less risks. [Question: Do you think
that reporting the possible risks or accidents have to do with it too?]. Yes, I think it is
directly related (Interview 16, the Colombian male engineer).

These notions of different norms or standards of reportable risk and injury are
also often tied more specifically to regional or national cultural standards or norms.
According to some interviewed workers, Latinos are conditioned to accept more difficult conditions because of their specific work experiences and their broader education and cultural experiences.
You have to take into account that if you get education here, you are educated with the
idea that the rules and norms are to be followed but if you come educated from there
[Latin America], you think that going up a scaffolding can be done with or without a
harness. You think that wearing a harness is ridiculous if its only a meter or two meters.
One as a Latino sees the danger differently (Interview 5, a Colombian male construction
worker).

For some, this Latino acceptance of injury and risk is tied to a cultural construction of themselves as hard or good workers. As the Columbian marble cutter
explains, Latino males often try to prove that they can get the job done even if its
too hard or risky. He states: Even when the boss says dont do it because its heavy
or because it could break one says well its not difficult for me and one does it
(respondent laughs) and takes the risk (Interview 31).
Some workers clearly take considerable pride in this notion of the Latino worker
without acknowledging that this may often translate into the acceptance of hazards
and injuries.

Tanya Basok, Alan Hall, and Eloy Rivas

| 49

The supervisors give the jobs to the Latinos one, because they are strong, and also
because they have abilities, they dont say no and they are not making excuses, and they
are not calling much the supervisor to say we dont have this, we dont have that. The
Latino moves, looks for it and does the job, they solve it, and so the supervisor trusts
more the Latinos in that sense than Canadians. And so, as a Latino I feel good (Interview
33, the Cuban male janitor).

However, a few workers see this so-called Latino drive to be good workers as a
problem. For example, the Colombian male greenhouse worker insists that he
actively resists this tendency but is frustrated by his fellow Latino co-workers:
Oh, I report everything. But I am frustrated with the others who report nothing. They
work very hard and fast, and even compete with each other to do the job more quickly.
And I say to them, why are you doing this? The boss is taking advantage of you, advantage of your dedication. That is why they have us [Latinos] because they know they can
get us to work harder (Interview 8).

However, not all workers see their national experiences as having a negative effect
on reporting. The female worker from Cuba thought quite the opposite. Saying we are
not beasts, she explains that it is important to speak up: I never stayed quiet because
I dont like it. I know because I come from Cuba where up to a certain point, there is
respect for those things. And if there is not then you report it (Interview 34). As this
quote implies, she made a distinction between Latinos and her own national context,
arguing that Cuba had a much stronger sense of workers rights and attention to health
and safety than Canada as well as other Latin American countries. Ironically, while this
female Cuban worker learned to assert her rights in Cuba, another Cuban immigrant
worker avoided reporting his injury to WSIB for fear of becoming dependent on
Canadian state support. He comments: The supervisor told me to report it, that they
were going to pay compensation. And I thought no, I just arrived here to this country
and ... I didnt want the government to pay for me because I wanted to work. I had all
the willingness to work (Interview 15, a male canning worker).While the construction
of the Latino as a hard worker willing to accept risks and injuries is especially evident
among males, many Latina women also see themselves in this way.
As is evident from the data presented in this section, most Latin American
immigrants see their cultural and/or home country heritage as shaping an acceptance of risk, hazards and injuries in ways that distinguish them from Canadian-born
workers. One of the interesting aspects of this latter finding is that although some
workers see themselves as actively resisting this orientation and some see time and
experiences as teaching them to think differently, others rely on this cultural framing at least to some extent to explain their continued acceptance of hazards and
injuries as if their behaviours are fixed by their past.

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Canadian Ethnic Studies/tudes ethniques au Canada

CONCLUSION
We have shown that the knowledge of legal rights in the workplace is essential to
immigrant workers capacities while also demonstrating that knowledge is in no way
sufficient to access rights. Reflecting their often subordinate positions in the
Canadian labour market, immigrants recognize their vulnerability to employer discipline and reprisals. Indeed, it was quite clear in our data that the fear of reprisal
had everything to do with the labour market position in which workers find themselves that is, those workers in non-union low wage temporary or part time
employment express more concerns about reprisals than workers in permanent
unionized, professional or middle management positions and, as pointed out, these
concerns are also reflected in reporting behaviour differences. However, as weve
shown, immigrant, regional, ethnic and home country identities, all of which can
limit or contradict a full sense of citizenship, also appear to exert some influence on
the way workers understand their acceptance of injuries and hazards. While these
identities are themselves quite closely tied to perceived access deficits in knowledge
and power to assert rights in the context of job insecurity, our results suggest that the
workers cultural framing of these distinctive non-Canadian risk orientations go
beyond questions of access to more fundamental questions about how their heritage
continues to shape the way they think and act. Somewhat ironically, as reported elsewhere (Hall 2012), when we look at the way Canadian-born workers explain their
acceptance of injuries and hazards, we find very similar kinds of self-images, rationales and concerns around hard work and laziness. The difference, however, is that
Canadian-born workers tend to reduce these characteristics to individual personality or values learned from a parent or some other significant other which separate
them from other workers, rarely defining them as broader features of their Canadian
culture or community.

NOTES
1. Authors are arranged in alphabetical order. All authors made an equal contribution to the paper.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to thank the Ontario Workplace Safety Insurance Board for their funding support.

TANYA BASOK is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology,

Anthropology, and Criminology at the University of Windsor. Her current research
interests include temporary migration in Canada and elsewhere, migrant rights
activism, Central American migrants in Mexico, unauthorized migration, and the
articulation of citizenship and human rights.
ALAN HALL is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, and the
Director of the Employment Relations Program at Memorial University. His current
research interests center around the workplace politics of health and safety, precarious employment, and enforcement of labour legislation.
ELOY RIVAS is a PhD candidate in Sociology, specializing in Political Economy, in
the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University.

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