Cultural Issues Krueger insists that contractors need to hire workers who can at least read and write. He also chides roofing companies that fail to take immigrant workers culture into account “and not just their language.”
Good says that NRCA has begun to engage its members in what he calls “cultural training” to familiarize them with workers’ needs. This instruction ranges from helping workers learn how to live in the U.S. to bringing contractors up to speed on literacy rates and immigration laws.
Hispanic workers’ culture manifests itself in both subtle and overt ways. For example, most prefer to be paid by the day or by the square, rather than by the hour (see “Pay Day”). Rodriguez says his company keeps a checklist to make sure workers don’t lapse into bad jobsite habits, like leaving a shovel on a front lawn, which “they may not even think twice about,” but which could upset a customer .
Hispanic workers’ “machismo” can also rear its head when contractors manage and train their employees. Krueger points to a worst-case scenario in California, where one contractor is embroiled in a lawsuit with the family of a Hispanic worker who, after being publicly reprimanded for placing a cooler on top of a parapet wall over an entrance, scaled the wall in an attempt to show up his supervisor, only to fall off and be killed. “Hispanics have a lot of pride, and you don’t want to undermine their authority in front of others,” Bark cautions.
Contractors say they must also deal with the fact that many Hispanic workers want to return to their homelands at least once a year. Surprisingly, this seems to be less of a problem for companies than one might have guessed. “They’re going to leave anyway, so you might as well accommodate them because they always come back,” says State Roofing’s Devier. Lyons Roofing keeps these workers’ jobs open “as best we can,” says Lyons, especially those employees whom the company deems as “valued” (usually those with at least two years’ tenure). Martin Roofing gives its workers an incentive to come back by telling them that their health coverage — “one of the few benefits they take advantage of,” notes Baumgartner — will be discontinued after four weeks’ absence.
Hernandez observes that as his company’s Hispanic workers assimilate into American society, they have been less inclined to make that annual trek to their homelands. “A lot of them have kids in school and mortgages, so they aren’t as transient.” Workers are also likely to remain loyal to companies they view as extensions of their own families. Recently, two of Bark Roofing’s vice presidents took two foremen and a laborer tuna fishing off of San Diego, a trip that Bark says was a good way for different levels of workers to get to know each other off the job. And a big event at Lyons Roofing is the company’s annual Christmas party for its workers and their families — complete with a Spanish-speaking Santa. —John Caulfield is a freelance writer and editor in New Jersey. He has been reporting on the home improvement field for more than two decades.