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Writing on the Wall Efforts by contractors to establish a common plane of communication with their immigrant workers have been abetted by suppliers such as Elk Premium Building Products, CertainTeed, and Owens Corning, whose packaging, product information, and, in some cases, training are now bilingual. Good says the NRCA has developed virtually all of its roofing application training programs in English and Spanish. And the Midwest Roofing Contractors Association has hired professors from the University of Kansas to translate its training materials into “colloquial” Spanish, according to executive director James T. Knight.

“All of this is occurring because we saw the writing on the wall, and it’s happening in every market,” says Bob Fisher, director of corporate development for GAF Building Products. Sometime this year, GAF will have all of its training manuals and other materials translated into Spanish. In the summer of 2003, the company hired its first full-time Spanish-English training manager, John Arellano, a 10-year industry veteran of Mexican descent, who had worked as a foreman and crewman for several companies and now flies around the country conducting training sessions specifically for Hispanic workers at GAF’s nine training centers.

“This might be the first time they’ve heard this in their own language,” says Chris Mooney, GAF’s national training manager, about Hispanic employees who have gone through the program, which regularly includes rooftop instruction. He said that Arellano will train around 4,000 workers this year, and as Mooney expands his training corps, he says that GAF’s president has mandated that any new hire must be bilingual.

At least three times over the past year, MR. Roofing, a $1.5 million company based in South San Francisco, has sent its workers to GAF’s training center in Ontario, Calif. — trips that have included tours of the manufacturer’s plant in nearby Fontana. Carlos Rodriguez, managing partner of MR. Roofing, says that he and his father, Miguel, who founded the company in 1989, have tagged along on those training sessions “as a show of support.” He attributes his company’s success to the “continuous training” it provides its 10 crewmen, most of whom are Spanish-speaking. That includes once-a-month safety training and quarterly technical training.

Brown, of Clearwater Home Improvement, has sent subs to GAF’s facility in Walpole, Mass., for which he’s paid $38 per person. “GAF picks them up in a van, feeds them, and has a trainer who speaks Spanish,” Brown says. “This [training] has been one of the keys that has allowed our business to grow.”

Safety Issues Are Critical All this training and instructional guidance must be sinking in with some immigrant workers, as statistical evidence has suggested that construction-related fatalities among Hispanic workers have been declining in recent years. Jobsite safety could be further improved as a result of a program called “Outreach,” cosponsored by Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and the U.S. Department of Labor. The goal is to enhance compliance with and awareness of workplace safety in both countries.

Hispanics still get injured at rates disproportionate to their numbers within construction trades, according to the latest OSHA data. So the influx of immigrant workers has been a double-edged sword for roofers who already pay some of the highest premiums for workers’ compensation insurance coverage of any business sector.

“When Hispanic workers have no conception of risk, it’s because too many roofing companies don’t teach these employees about risk management,” says Randy Krueger, a safety consultant with Chicago-based Construction Safety Services, who sits on MRCA’s board and chairs that group’s S H A R P (Safety and Health Agenda for Roofing Professionals) program. CSSI has been analyzing roofing-related fatalities on behalf of insurance companies for more than five years and has found that at least 30% of all incidents involving Hispanics happen to those with no experience, and often to those who have been on the job for less than two weeks. “Some of these guys should never have been on a roof in the first place,” Krueger says.