Garment workers in Los Angeles can thank
Oakland garment workers and their teenage daughters for starting a health
and safety revolution resulting in vastly improved, ergonomic chairs and
other interventions to ease the pain of their repetitive work, reports
the Los Angeles Times. Responding to their mothers’ suffering from
working in awkward positions and cramped space, the teens walked picket
lines and passed out flyers urging the workers to get treatment for their
pain at a newly established clinic in Chinatown.
Established with funding from the California
Wellness Foundation four years ago by the community-based Asian Immigrant
Women Advocates, COEH faculty members, and California Department of Health
Services collaborators, the clinic provides treatment for work-related
problems, physical therapy, and workshops to teach the mostly Asian immigrant
women how to prevent workplace injuries. Results from the first 100 garment
workers to visit the Oakland clinic indicate that all but one of those
workers had one or more work-related problems, and a majority reported
a reduction in pain after the clinic interventions.
In 2002 the clinic expanded their effort to help low wage workers in the
hotel and restaurant trades, many of whom are Spanish-speaking immigrants.
Now, the success of their efforts has spawned a larger study in Los Angeles
County funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
Directed by Beate Ritz, faculty member at the Southern California COEH
at UCLA, in collaboration with the Northern California COEH and the California
Department of Health Services, it will build upon the experience in the
garment shops of Oakland to test ergonomics interventions in a larger
study.
Another milestone for the Oakland group came with Alameda County funding
that enabled them to create a chair lending library because the $160 ergonomically
designed chairs were too expensive for an industry with a razor thin profit
margin. Energized by this success dozens of garment workers and their
children convinced the Oakland City Council to provide funding for another
135 chairs to lend to 15 more factories. The workers are thrilled to spread
the word so others can benefit from better working conditions.
Northern California collaborators include COEH faculty members Nan Lashuay
and
Barbara Burgel of the Occupational Health Nursing program,
Robert
Harrison of the Occupational Medicine program and the California Department
of Health Services,
David Rempel and Ira Janowitz of the Ergonomics Program;
and California Department of Health Services colleague Jacqueline Chan.
