LOHP Summer Newsletter 2022

Pictured from left to right: Robin Dewey, Diane Bush, Dinorah Barton-Antonio, Karen Andrews

This year is one that is bringing a great amount of change to LOHP, as four of our key staff are retiring. Diane Bush, Dinorah Barton-Antonio, Robin Dewey, and Karen Andrews have each worked here for over 20 years and have made significant contributions to our organization and to the movement to promote safe and healthy jobs for all workers. In this newsletter “shout out,” we want to share how important they have been to our field and to LOHP. Congratulations to all – your retirement is well-deserved!

Karen Andrews, LOHP’s librarian, served as an essential resource for LOHP staff and the communities we serve. She provided technical assistance and referrals through our Resource Center, trained students and other librarians, maintained a Multilingual Resource Guide with safety and health materials available in a variety of languages, and helped our staff do the background research to develop many of our curricula, research projects, and resources lists.

Dinorah Barton-Antonio’s commitment to working in the Latinx community, especially the Contra Costa County communities that are located near refineries and other industrial facilities, led to her developing new partnerships and important programs in Spanish on emergency response, disaster preparedness, and environmental justice. Through Dinorah’s leadership development work, she formed a core group of community members with whom she worked responding to wildfires in Napa and Sonoma counties and to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her creativity, warmth, and focus on community have been invaluable.

Diane Bush’s work to protect young workers developed from a seed of an idea into a thriving program that has included youth-specific trainings, yearly Young Worker Leadership Academies and Safe Jobs for Youth Month campaigns, a statewide partnership, and a national resource center. Many young worker programs sprouted around the country as a result of her work. Diane played a pivotal role in developing LOHP’s research capacity and expanding our academic partnerships and connections to students. She has been an incredible mentor and leader to new staff and students entering the field of occupational health.

Robin Dewey has spearheaded our long-term WOSHTEP and SASH programs, did innovative work on health and safety training for workers with intellectual and cognitive disabilities, young workers, and temporary workers, and’ helped build out our work with employers – always advancing our LOHP core message of the importance of worker involvement in safety programs. She provided key leadership in our training and curriculum development and built essential and enduring partnerships with key allies and stakeholders.

LOHP Welcomes New Staff

We are happy to welcome Hestia Rojas and Monique Hosein to our team!

Hestia Rojas, MPH

Before joining LOHP, Hestia spent 8 years working in sexual and reproductive health, first as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala and later with youth programs in New York City. She is excited to work in the field of health and safety because she believes that safe working conditions and fair wages are at the root of equity. “On a personal level, I am indebted to my grandmother, who emigrated to the US from the Dominican Republic and devoted almost all the hours in her life to working so she could create a better life for future generations. She did not have access to fair working conditions nor fair hours. I want to promote worker rights and improve conditions for the next generation of immigrants, like my grandmother, because I believe that all people deserve safe and fair working conditions and equitable pay. I love that LOHP approaches worker health and equity from a multi-pronged approach (policy, research, direct programing and capacity building), and it has been great to start working with this team!”

Monique Hosein, DrPH

Monique first connected with LOHP when she was a Master of Public Health student at San Francisco State and Charlotte Chang presented on the community-based participatory research project in San Francisco’s Chinatown that led to the nation’s first anti-wage theft law. In her Doctor of Public Health studies at UC Berkeley, she had classes with Robert Reich of the Goldman School of Public Policy and with Suzanne Teran, which strengthened her commitment to safe, healthy, and just workplaces. “Other critical issues that sparked my interest were farmworkers’ exposure to pesticides, heat and other hazards at work, and a classmate’s project on decriminalizing sex work as a public health issue. I became a member of LOHP’s Academic Advisory Committee and that deepened my regard for LOHP’s critical work. I have remained a fan and am so proud to be a part of this impressive program.” Monique brings a depth of experience as a health educator implementing and managing a range of community-based programs.

Strippers Organizing for Safe Workplaces

An exciting organizing campaign is underway, led by dancers who were fired by Star Garden, a strip club in Los Angeles, for asking for basic protections. One member, who goes by Sinder, describes the goal of their campaign: "I want security to be able to intervene when customers are harassing me, whether it be sexual or physical assault. I would like a cleaner environment to work in where holes in the stage don't cut me when I'm working. And if I'm injured, I want to be able to take time off and heal without it being detrimental to my financial security."

The workers have been coming together to advocate for their rights and organize for better protections with Strippers United, who describe themselves as “a diverse and inclusive community of empowered strippers who share an uncompromised vision for our rights, our vital role in society and our dignity as professionals”. Their focus is to create a safe and equitable work environment for strippers across the country.

LOHP partnered with Strippers United to offer a series of workshops that covered how to identify and address a wide range of hazards, the role of government agencies including Cal/OSHA, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and strategies for taking action to improve their working conditions. Yasin Kahn, one of the LOHP trainers, reflects, “It was so exciting to be able to support this group and also learn from their campaign as it was unfolding.”

The Star Garden dancers continue to organize, showing strippers and workers in other industries effective ways to exercise their power and stand up for their rights.

Check out this video on the campaign. For more information on Strippers United, visit their website.

Safe Jobs 4 Youth Month

In 2021, a young man lost his life on the job while changing the oil for a car in a small tire shop. Working with a lifting apparatus, such as a hydraulic jack, is prohibited for youth under 18. Small business employers, in particular, need to know how they can prevent this kind of tragic event from happening.

In May each year, LOHP and the California Partnership for Young Worker Health organize a public awareness campaign – Safe Jobs for Youth Month (SJ4YM). This year, in response to the young worker fatality, the SJ4YM activities focused on raising awareness of this tragedy with the aim of promoting safe working conditions for teens.

The Teen Fatality Response Kit includes resources for teachers, young workers, and employers to do their part in helping to protect and educate their employers and young workers. Other SJ4YM activities included a youth poster contest, social media campaign, and a webinar that was hosted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Council in collaboration with the CA Partnership. Watch the webinar, “Young Worker Job Safety: Proactive Practices for Employers,” and share these resources with local employers to help prevent future tragedies – in any kind of workplace.

Winning Poster, Jack Bullock, Encino, CA

WOSH Specialist in Action

Rechelle Richie-Leach, who participated in the July 2020 WOSH Specialist course, describes that the class helped her learn her rights and how to advocate for herself. Rechelle works as a janitor in a Bay Area school district. At one point during the pandemic, she and her coworkers lacked the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect themselves against COVID-19. “They [the school] said that they weren’t responsible for PPE. They [would give] us 5 masks and you’re supposed to use them for 30 days. But we changed that…..With the knowledge I gained from the course and help from the union, I was able to get the department to establish an online system where everyone can request PPE.”

Rechelle has also shared the information she gained in the class with her fellow janitors. In response to the pandemic, her school helped to distribute free food for families in need. However, the responsibility of stocking the food was added to the janitors’ workloads, with little consideration of necessary safety procedures needed. Initially, the school lacked proper equipment to move around the heavy boxes of food. One of the janitors got injured when she used a box as a ladder to retrieve food from a shelf. Rechelle was able to work with the union to get appropriate dollies to transport the food. She also informed the injured janitor of her rights. Rechelle explains, “The training helped change a whole lot. I was able to apply the training. I was able to take her [the other janitor] a step further with the training and let her know that you have a right to say no to [doing dangerous work].”

The Worker Occupational Safety and Health (WOSH) Specialist course is a 3-day leadership training course for workers to take an active role in improving health and safety conditions.

Click here for more information.

LOHP in the Field

Here is a glimpse at some of our recent work:

Met with our Labor Advisory Committee - LOHP's 2022 Labor Advisory Committee meeting brought together dozens of leaders in unions, worker centers, labor councils, and advocacy organizations to discuss strategies for advancing worker health and safety.

Collaborated with the San Francisco Latino Task Force workforce development program to train Spanish-speakers preparing to work in the maintenance industry.

Trained staff and worker leaders with Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, an organization supporting non-union janitors, who are now conducting workshops in Spanish on workplace violence prevention and safe cleaning.

Organized and facilitated a panel including CA Assemblyperson Ash Kalra and Rene Bayardo from SEIU to talk about policy and advocacy strategies, as part of the California Labor Lab’s conference, Precarious Work: Health and Economic Threats.

Trained day laborers on COVID-19 protections, at the Mountainview Day Worker Center.

Hosted a webinar on school hazards, as part of the Schools Action for Safety and Health program.

Coordinating placements for four summer interns with the Occupational Health Internship Program - working with UFCW cannabis workers and ROC the Bay and restaurant workers.