For South Florida’s immigrant construction workers, Baltimore bridge collapse is personal

Pedro Marcos Raymundo knows what it’s like to work in hazardous conditions. Since moving to South Florida in 2014, the Guatemalan man has worked in electricity, plumbing, any construction work he can find.

During roofing jobs, he often won’t be able to get down to get a drink of water or rest in the shade. Under the heat of the sun, headaches and stomach pains set in. The metal roof sheets and building supplies get hot, burning his skin. Raymundo works without helmets, rope or harnesses.

“As undocumented workers, we always face danger in our work, whether it’s roofing, woodwork, agriculture”, said Raymundo, 53.

A niece told him about the tragedy that had taken place near her home in the Baltimore area. In the dead of night on March 26, a barge lost power and struck a mile-and-a half-long bridge. The structure plunged into cold river water, taking down with it six workers from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala who were fixing up potholes before the next morning’s rush hour.

Preliminary findings point to the fatal tragedy being an accident. But for immigrant construction workers in South Florida like Raymundo, the deaths in Maryland are a reminder of the precariousness and dangers of the jobs they take up to survive in the United States and the sacrifices they make for their families still back home.

“Although we are in Miami, we feel hurt because our countrymen lost their lives. Our pain is in solidarity,” Raymundo said. “They were working with dignity and with bravery. They had good hearts. What happens to their families now? They are suffering unimaginable pain.”

Florida saw 307 people die on the job in 2022, the third state with the highest number of work-related deaths after Texas and California, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks fatal occupational injuries. Roughly one-third of the fatalities involved Hispanic immigrant workers.

“The private construction industry sector had the highest number of fatalities in Florida with 91, up from 76 in the previous year,” said the agency in a news release. Just last week, a construction worker died in Fort Lauderdale when a crane collapsed at the site of an apartment building project.

Nationwide the agency found that a worker died every 96 minutes in 2022 from a work-related injury. That added up to 5,486 workplace-related deaths that year. Almost 800 of those national-level worker deaths were foreign-born Hispanics, making up over half of all Hispanic worker fatalities.

“What’s happening to immigrant workers who are in these really dangerous jobs is a very serious crisis in Florida and around the country,” said Zaina Alsous, the Miami director for WeCount!, a worker-led group that advocates for hundreds of immigrant- and low-income workers in Miami-Dade County.

“Our lives have value”

Florida routinely ranks among the U.S. states with the most construction development. The heads of these companies acknowledged the critical role that immigrants play in their growth. Jeff Lozama, the CEO of Miami-based glazing contractor CMS Group, said last year that the construction industry in Florida could not keep up its current pace without immigrant workers.

“They often take on jobs that are physically demanding and require skills in jobs that most Americans are not willing to take on,’’ he told an audience during the Miami Opportunity Summit in August 2023.

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Alsous said she has been working on an initiative to support immigrant construction workers who are experiencing wage theft, a lack of safety protections and other workplace abuses. She said that unionized workers in Florida have better wages, education opportunities and work protections than those who are not organized or have agreements with their employers.

“Unfortunately what we’ve seen in construction in Florida [for non-union workers and contractors] is a race to the bottom. Contractors, subcontractors who are seeking the cheapest job possible cut corners. And it’s the workers who bear the brunt of that,” she said. “There is less health and safety oversight, workers don’t access the training they need, supervisors don’t look out to ensure that workers are safe.”

Alsous said that sometimes workers will be incorrectly told that they have different sets of rights based on their immigration status. For example, construction companies under state law must generally be insured to cover a workers’ serious injury, though some exceptions exist.

“Sometimes workers are told if you don’t have a particular status, there’s nothing you can do,” said Alsous. “Sometimes people don’t know what the laws are, but sometimes it is a way to exploit workers.”

Family pressures

Immigrant workers are under pressure to support their families, both in the United States and abroad. That can force immigrant workers to go to work even when they are healing from an injury, work at a pace that can increase their risk of injury or death, or keep them from speaking up about workplace abuses and accidents altogether.

The workers in the Maryland accident were helping families they had left behind before migrating. Local media outlet Baltimore Banner said that Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, one of the victims of the tragedy, from Honduras, sent hundreds of dollars to his family every month. That allowed them to operate a small hotel and put a dozen of his nephews and nieces through school. He also left behind a wife and two young children.

That pressure is familiar to Raymundo, who is also a worker leader for WeCount!. He told the Herald that there is a lot of violence and a lack of work opportunities in Guatemala, and that he frequently sends money home for his father, his brothers and his sister. His relatives use the cash to buy clothes, medicine and other basic necessities. At the same time, he supports his wife and young children in South Florida, including a four-month old baby.

“We are all the same”

Mauro Kennedy came to the U.S. in 2001 from Argentina, where he was an architect and graphic designer. During his first years in his new country, he found work installing floors.

“In my country I worked in a coat and tie in front of a drawing table. Here, I had to learn everything I didn’t know how to do, the basics,” he said.

Some years ago arthritis began to flare up in his bones. Doctors told him that he had to replace both hip bones, that he wouldn’t be able to walk for months, and that he would end up in a wheelchair if he didn’t get medical intervention.

But Kennedy, at the time, was undocumented. He said that it was the arduous construction work exacerbated his medical condition. And his precarious circumstances as an undocumented construction worker kept him from receiving the medical treatment he needed. He worked for about three years through the unbearable pain, he said, spending countless nights awake and wondering what would happen to him and his family.

“I felt like I was left with nothing, that I was left without myself,” he said.

One of his clients — an orthopedic surgeon from Ohio with a property in Miami Beach — noticed his limping while he was on the job. The doctor performed the Kennedy needed.

Kennedy spent 17 years undocumented, despite his brothers were U.S. citizens and his mother a permanent resident. Eventually, he was able to get his immigration paperwork in order. Today, he’s a project manager and runs his own company remodeling and renovating properties.

He said that the immigrant workers who perished in the Maryland collapse were his “people,” Hispanic immigrants who wanted to get ahead for their families, but got the short end of the stick. They took risks and faced exploitation because of their terrible desire to make a better life for themselves and the people they love, he said.

“We are all the same. We are all workers,” he added. “And we are all in it together.”