In reference to the news regarding four men killed in a crash in Lisle Township on Monday (Metro news, July 7), and as a person who has firsthand contact with workers, I wish to express that it saddens me to tears to know this accident may have been prevented if the company had bothered to make sure the truck was in proper working condition.
From the photograph depicted, you can almost tell it was a rusted-up clunker that workers were made to drive, and this is, unfortunately, the choice many workers are faced with, regardless of nationality.
Many safeguards are trampled and ignored, in the name of numbers and production, and the result is a generation of maimed Mexican-American workers whose families face uncertainty at best, if not the death of the main provider of the house.
At the Hispanic Council, we get to see many of these work-related accidents and illnesses in a disproportionate number with regard to the rest of the population, because 73 percent of us work in factories.
This accident, so tragic in the loss of life, should serve as a reminder to all those who employ men not to put their lives in peril and expose them to something the employers and their families would not be exposed to. They must have consideration for the workers’ lives and not consider them just beasts of burden, take care of their needs and those of their families, respect them and pay them a just salary, and share the benefits of the enterprise with them as well. After all, in the workers’ sweat is the equity acquired.
We know that somebody has to pick the cotton. We know it is us in this modern time–Latinos are the new slaves of America. The least you can do is help us pick it safely.
