Construction industry works to bridge language gaps

“If you can’t speak their language, you may have a disadvantage,” said Norris Cornell, general superintendent for Walton Construction.

Communication disadvantages may result in errors in the work or impaired safety for workers.

Cornell and others in the southwest Missouri construction market are recognizing the need to bridge the communication gap between English-speaking employers and Spanish-speaking workers.

One way around the communication gap is for contractors and subcontractors to speak to a member of the crew who acts as a translator, but that method isn’t foolproof.

“They usually have one guy in charge who can speak English well enough to communicate, but sometimes he’s a little shaky, too,” Cornell said.

Thinking that someone who speaks Spanish can translate effectively is a common communication error, said Yolanda Lorge, president of Grupo Latinoamericano.

“Even those who are bilingual are not skilled in interpreting,” she said. “It’s a different skill.”

Dan Corcoran, assistant director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Kansas City office, said OSHA’s Spanish-speaking workers are called via cell phone at job sites to help interpret questions and directions to Spanish-speaking workers.

But that “makes as much sense as putting someone from Great Britain in charge of translating to someone in Kentucky,” Lorge said, adding that there are 21 Spanish-speaking countries. “There will be differences, not only in the accent, but also in the use of the language.”

Training options

Springfield-based Brittney Inc. founder and CEO Lee Johnson, a former OSHA inspector supervisor in Indiana, knows there’s a need for better bilingual communication in the construction industry. He was surprised, then, when no one showed up in September for safety-training sessions he organized for Spanish-speaking workers through his consulting firm.

“We got nothing. I couldn’t believe it,” Johnson said of the lack of participation.

Johnson contracted with AAA Compliance in Indianapolis to do the training sessions. The company conducts training sessions in Spanish and is operated by Carmen Verela, who Johnson worked with at OSHA.

Johnson got the word out about the sessions through ads in the newsletters of Springfield Contractors Association and Joplin’s Tri-State Area Contractors Association Inc., and by faxing and e-mailing flyers to industry contacts.

Verela said she, too, was puzzled by the lack of response, and she thinks that one barrier may have been the $200 fee.

Still, Johnson and Verela aren’t giving up. They’re going to try holding sessions again in December or January.

“We’re going to try one more time to see if we can generate some interest in it,” Johnson said.

Brittney Inc.’s Johnson has built a library of more than 100 safety and training videotapes and DVDs , the majority of which are in Spanish. The library is available to clients and their workers.

Matt Morrow, executive officer of the Home Builders Association of Greater Springfield, said HBA is taking steps of its own to help solve communication problems in the home-building industry.

“In the coming year, we hope to obtain more copies of training and seminars in Spanish,” Morrow said. The project is in the early planning stages, with no dates set for launch, but training would be available to association members and their employees.

“The seminars we’re talking about aren’t language seminars,” Morrow said. “They’re safety seminars.”

Cultural barriers

The language barrier isn’t the only challenge that comes from working with people from Hispanic cultures.

“The safety standards in Mexico are so very different than those in the United States,” Verela said. “Their safety rules weren’t as detailed in Mexico, so it’s a big adjustment when they begin working here. Often they don’t realize when safety may have been jeopardized because their rules are so different.”

Grupo Latinoamericano’s Lorge agrees.

“If they’ve worked in construction at all in Mexico or Central America, they don’t have as strict regulations as we have here. In many cases for these people, they are not laws, they’re suggestions,” Lorge said.

Even experienced Hispanic construction workers may have much to learn once they begin working in the United States.

“The way they build is completely different. The materials are different,” she added. “They don’t build houses with wood frames in Latin America.”