Many minority groups including Latinos share a lot of the same values including unquestioning respect and deference to authority figures such as work supervisors, foremen, business owners and they like, and they won’t disagree or question a person in authority.
Latinos, generally, are not likely to trust employers, especially if they are non-Latino. They don’t want to rock the boat and many fear deportation so the potential for under-reporting safety issues, injuries and other problems at the workplace. Cultural differences and fears of deportation are likely keeping many Latinos from reporting injuries that happen on the job and claiming workers’ compensation benefits that are due them.
In Jirow v. Jennie-O Turkey Store, the WCCA seemed to allude to the fact that cultural differences need to be taken into account when addressing the compensability of a work related injury. The following are excerpts from the case:
This was a difficult decision and we affirm the compensation judge’s decision with some reluctance. There are a number of disturbing facts in this case. As the employee points out in his brief, the employer engaged in numerous inappropriate contacts with the employee’s health care providers, apparently primarily to undercut the employee’s credibility as to the pain he was experiencing. The health care providers at Rice Memorial Hospital abetted this conduct, demonstrating more concern over the question of whether the employee had as much pain as he claimed than in the question of the efficacy of the employee’s care. Dr. Doyle’s release of the employee to return to work appears to have been based on improvement from physical therapy that lacks any support in the actual records and was made after consulting with the company nurse.
The compensation judge made comments about the employee’s credibility in statements found in the records without any recognition that those statements were filtered through translators who were rarely identified and whose competency was never shown. Finally, there was no acknowledgment by anyone in this case that there may well have been cultural factors involved in the employee’s actions and statements which should have been considered.
Throughout the Minnesota workers’ compensation system it is important we take into account the cultural differences, language barriers and the fear of possible deportation when evaluating a workers’ compensation case.
