Leveraging health capital at the workplace: An examination of health reporting behavior among Latino immigrant restaurant workers in the United States

Abstract

This article examines the choices made by a sample of Latino immigrant restaurant workers in regard to their health management, particularly in response to illness and injury. I draw on 33 interviews with kitchen staff employed in the mainstream restaurant industry in San Jose, California, and Houston, Texas, in 2006 and 2007. I argue that workers must consider complex power relationships at work in weighing the advantages of calling in sick, using protective equipment, seeking medical care, or filing a workers' compensation claim. These decisions implicate direct and opportunity costs, such as risk of job loss and missed opportunities for advancement. Workers consequently leverage their health capital to meet their economic needs, to assert their autonomy at the workplace, and to ultimately reject the stigma of illness and injury.

Precarious Claims: The Promise and Failure of Workplace Protections in the United States

“…On the one hand, they are deportable "aliens, " and employers who hire them are subject to fines and criminal prosecution. On the other hand, they are a critical part of the workforce, and as easy targets for abuse, they also are an important outreach priority for labor standards enforcement agencies and advocates (Gleeson 2012a). The government then is at once responsible for policing and aiding undocumented workers.…”

“…My previous work examined how workers develop a legal consciousness about their rights and identified what factors keep them from coming forward with a claim (Gleeson 2010). The concept of legal consciousness has become somewhat shopworn in the field of law and society, but it is still useful for understanding how laws sustain their institutional power and how individuals understand their rights under the law and make decisions as to whether and how to exercise them (Silbey 2005(Silbey , 2008).…”

“…These legal institutions function as if structural prejudice doesn't exist (Bonilla-Silva 2006), and oftentimes even social scientists themselves give insufficient weight to the societal factors driving certain policies (Bonilla-Silva and Baiocchi 2001). For instance the vulnerabilities of undocumented workers, despite the formal protections offered to them under labor and employment law, must also be understood in the context of immigration laws that almost exclusively impact Latino workers (Gleeson 2014b;Gomberg-Muñoz 2011;Armenta 2016). Moreover, deep-seated disadvantages can lead to institutional inequality across socio-legal realms, such as the ways in which patriarchy shapes sexual harassment (Marshall 2003) and family leave (Albiston 2010) policies.…”

“…The data on the rate of workplace injury is limited by a variety of factors: lack of workers' knowledge of their rights, fear of retaliation, competition among workers, and limits on workers' willingness to report injuries (Gleeson 2012b;Cox and Lippel 2008). With few exceptions, employers only have to report severe injuries and fatalities to OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration 2014).…”

Introduction to a Special Issue on the Impact of Immigrant Legalization Initiatives: International Perspectives on Immigration and the World of Work

“…Evidence shows that unauthorized workers suffer significantly higher rates of workplace violations than do US-born and authorized immigrants (Bernhardt, Spiller, and Theodore 2013). Studies have also detailed how unauthorized status inhibits workers' ability to file claims against their employers when faced with workplace rights abuses (Gleeson 2010(Gleeson , 2012. Finally, Hall, Greenman, and Farkas (2011) found that unauthorized workers do not reap the same rewards for schooling and their wages grow more slowly in comparison to their authorized counterparts.…”