Doing work Americans won’t do? Typical of the Washington Compost. I see people of all races and nationalities doing road work on racist highways
and bridges. If not for timely action by police there would have been Americans who will do work Americans will and don’t do falling into that channel. These liberal dumbasses just can’t help themselves.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/27/migrant-workers-baltimore-bridge-collapse/
Doing work Americans won’t do? Typical of the Washington Compost. I see
people of all races and nationalities doing road work on racist highways
and bridges. If not for timely action by police there would have been Americans who will do work Americans will and don’t do falling into that
channel. These liberal dumbasses just can’t help themselves.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/27/migrant-workers-baltimore-bridge-collapse/
On 3/28/2024 11:49 AM, George.Anthony wrote:
Doing work Americans won’t do? Typical of the Washington Compost. I see
people of all races and nationalities doing road work on racist highways
and bridges. If not for timely action by police there would have been
Americans who will do work Americans will and don’t do falling into that >> channel. These liberal dumbasses just can’t help themselves.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/27/migrant-workers-baltimore-bridge-collapse/
I would have liked to read this story. Can't get past the signing up thing. Can you copy and paste here what is written?
On 3/28/2024 12:27 PM, sticks wrote:
On 3/28/2024 11:49 AM, George.Anthony wrote:
Doing work Americans won’t do? Typical of the Washington Compost. I see >>> people of all races and nationalities doing road work on racist highways >>> and bridges. If not for timely action by police there would have been
Americans who will do work Americans will and don’t do falling into that >>> channel. These liberal dumbasses just can’t help themselves.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/27/migrant-workers-baltimore-bridge-collapse/
I would have liked to read this story. Can't get past the signing up
thing. Can you copy and paste here what is written?
Early Tuesday morning, a panicked voice awoke Maritza Guzman de
Villatoro. A bridge in Baltimore had collapsed, her daughter shouted. A familiar pit soon formed in her stomach.
Last March, a speeding car plowed between highway barriers on the same Baltimore highway and killed six workers, including Villatoro’s husband
and brother-in-law. That crash along Interstate 695 was about 20 miles
from the bridge. Now, a massive ship stacked with containers had crashed
into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing its collapse. Six workers,
all native to Latin America, were lost in the Patapsco River and
presumed dead.
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One of the victims, Miguel Luna, came from the same area in El Salvador
as Villatoro and her husband, near the southeastern city of Usulutan,
she said.
“We leave with so many dreams,” she said, her voice trembling. “Here, immigrants have the hardest times and do the hardest jobs, and then
we’re the first to break.”
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The latest deaths underscore a truth that relatives of victims in both tragedies say is too often taken for granted — that immigrants are some
of the most vulnerable, least-protected workers in the United States.
While full details about the victims in the bridge collapse have not
been released to the public, they are known to be natives of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Two workers were quickly rescued,
but the search for others was ongoing. Authorities announced Wednesday
they had recovered two bodies, those of Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35,
of Baltimore and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, of Dundalk, Md.
Some 130,000 immigrants work in the construction industry in the
Baltimore and Washington regions, making up 39 percent of the workforce, according to Casa, a Maryland-based Latino and immigration advocacy organization. Latin Americans are one of the fastest-growing
demographics in the region, surging by 77 percent in Baltimore during
the 2010s, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Many who are recent immigrants face the economic hardships that come
with seasonal and temporary work and the threat of immigration
enforcement, all while enduring blazing heat, speeding drivers and the disdain of those who want to see a crackdown on illegal immigration.
Maynor Suazo Sandoval, among the six bridge workers presumed to be dead,
came to the United States illegally, said his nephew Hector Guardado — though Suazo Sandoval’s employer said he was working in Baltimore
legally. Suazo Sandoval, Guardado said, was contributing to the economy
in ways many citizens are not willing to.
“The kind of work he did is what people born in the U.S. won’t do,” Guardado said by phone from Honduras. “People like him travel there with
a dream. They don’t want to break anything or take anything.”
The men were supporting families both in the Baltimore region and in
their home countries, said the Rev. Ako Walker, pastor of Sacred Heart
of Jesus, a Catholic parish in southeastern Baltimore that serves a
largely Hispanic population.
“It’s important to realize that families lost their breadwinners,” Walker said.
The role of immigrants at the center of the two incidents, separated by
a year and a matter of miles, has already prompted calls from Maryland leaders and immigrant groups to better protect them — even if it wasn’t clear how to accomplish that.
“There’s certain occupations where we understand there’s dangers associated with it,” Gov. Wes Moore (D) said. “For someone filling potholes, you don’t think that’s one of those professions. It’s something we have to have a more aggressive approach to.”
Emergency personnel work at the scene of a fatal crash along Interstate
695 on March 22, 2023, near Woodlawn, Md. (Julio Cortez/AP)
But federal data shows that Hispanic workers face disproportionately
high fatality rates, especially in the construction industry.
While foreign-born Hispanic and Latino workers made up 8.2 percent of
the U.S. workforce in 2021, they accounted for 14 percent of workplace deaths, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And these deaths
have been on the rise — from a reported 512 deaths in 2011 to 727 in
2021, the highest on record.
The construction industry is especially dangerous for foreign-born
Hispanic and Latino workers, 274 of whom died in 2021. The group
accounted for 7.9 percent of the industry’s workers but 26.3 percent of deaths from falls, slips and trips in 2020.
Gustavo Torres, Casa’s executive director, said the repeated tragedies stressed the need for legislation to better protect vulnerable workers, though he did not offer specific proposals. Without action, he said,
similar tragedies will keep occurring.
When asked about how immigrant laborers might be better protected,
officials in the Moore administration pointed to legislation they are proposing to improve safety in highway work zones. Their bill would
improve driver education, increase enforcement of work zone speed limits
and raise fines for motorists who flout them.
But Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D), a former traffic engineer, acknowledged
those policies would not have stopped a ship from hitting a bridge, and
that, somehow, that risk would need to be addressed in future reforms, too.
“We’re going to have to make sure maritime safety is also part of that,”
Miller said.
At the same time, for most workers who are undocumented, worries about deportation or detention are a lingering concern, according to a recent national survey by KFF and the Los Angeles Times.
Timothy Young, a spokesman for the Baltimore-based immigration services nonprofit Global Refuge, said sometimes those in the country without documentation do not seek medical treatment for fear of being deported.
“You can put your head down, go to work every day, follow the law and
still live with that specter hanging over your head,” Young said.
The bridge workers were full-time employees at Brawner Builders, all
with several years of experience there, said Jeffrey Pritzker, executive
vice president at the Hunt Valley, Md.-based company. They were not
members of a union, and as employees received what Pritzker called “a substantial benefit package,” declining to provide details. He said
Brawner does not employ any undocumented immigrants.
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