www.newsday.com SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2001 v NASSAU $1.

50

Fredi
Canales,
left, and
Gabriel
Nuñez met
with tragedy
at Omni
Recycling
in West
Babylon.
Newsday Photo, 1996 / Dick Kraus

Immigrants Face Workplace Hazards With

Alarming Frequency, Especially in NY State
SERIES BEGINS ON PAGES A6-7
COPYRIGHT 2001, NEWSDAY INC., LONG ISLAND, VOL. 61, NO. 322
A6
Dreams Flourish
SUCCESS’ RISK. Leonel Salinas, in his Intipucá home, lost several fingers while working at a New Jersey restaurant.
Tragedy Lies Behind
A Village’s Prosperity
By Thomas Maier
STAFF WRITER
INTIPUCÁ, EL SALVADOR
W
ALKING through her recently renovated
home here, Maria Albertina Andrade de
Salinas talks with pride about her China
cabinets, air-conditioning system and satellite tele-
vision, amenities she bought with dollars earned
as a housekeeper in Manhattan.
She also points to a new crystal chandelier and
the salmon-colored tile on her balcony floors. “I
bought them at Home Depot,” she says with a grin.
In her home, and in many others in the rural
mountain village, the rewards of working in the
United States can be seen all around this once pov-
erty-stricken farming community locals now call
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2001
“The Village of the Dollar.”
But they came at a great cost. During their time
in America, her husband, Leonel, had several fin-
gers chopped off his hand in a work-related acci-
dent. Maria became the family’s main breadwin-
ner until her husband recovered and could find an-
other job many months later.
Because of the poverty in Intipucá, Leonel Sali-
nas says his family had no choice but to work hard
in America until they saved enough to return. “In
El Salvador, we didn’t have work,” he recalls.
“When I arrived in the U.S., I started sending
Newsday Photo / Moises Saman
money back home to my family. If I would have
stayed here in El Salvador, I would have never
been able to have a house.”
The incentives to leave home and travel to Amer-
ica looking for work are clearly evident. In the vil-
lage’s outskirts, families in tattered clothes live
huddled in ramshackle huts with dirt floors, leaky
clay-tile roofs, and no sewage or electricity. In the
affluent parts of the village, however, the streets
are paved, people speak on cell phones, and newly
renovated homes have satellite dishes affixed to
the roofs. The vast income differences in this vil-
lage often depend on whether a family has a rela-
tive working in America or not.
But the risks are also well known.
Although Intipucá is flush with U.S. dollars sent
back from immigrants working illegally in Ameri-
ca, the village also is filled with stories of death
and tragedy.
“There are many who have returned dead from
the United States,” says village Mayor Enrrique
Méndez, who estimates that half of the adult popu-
lation that should constitute Intipucá is currently
working in America.
“The stories I hear from people are risky adven-
tures, with many who have died or disappeared
coming to the U.S. The hard part is for the people
See VILLAGE on A34
Lured by dollars,
many immigrants
risk death in
dangerous jobs
First in a series
By Thomas Maier
STAFF WRITER
T
HEY WERE two young men from
the mountains of El Salvador who
came to America with the same
dream — to earn enough for a bet-
ter life for their families.
Instead, they died in America’s garbage.
At age 16, Fredi Canales left the mud huts
and unpaved roads of the rural village of
Concepción de Oriente with a promise to his
family. Someday, the young man with soft
brown eyes would return with enough
money to pull them out of poverty.
Fredi survived a 2,100-mile journey to
Long Island and eventually landed a job as
a garbage picker by claiming he was 21 and
using a phony name to avoid detection as an
illegal immigrant. The pay was $5.50 an
hour at Omni Recycling, a sprawling gar-
bage-sorting plant in West Babylon. In only
a short time, Fredi had two close calls: being
buried under a pile of garbage from a dump truck and
being knocked against a wall and nearly crushed by a
forklift.
One winter night, Fredi called his grandmother in
El Salvador, telling her that he was frightened by the
mishaps in the plant. “The last time he talked to me
he said he didn’t like it there and would come back
soon,” Eugenia Rodriguez de Morán recalls.
The next day, March 2, 1998, Fredi climbed 18 feet
to the top of a 12-inch-wide beam to clear jammed gar-
bage from a giant sorting machine. Moments later, he
fell, smashing his head against the concrete floor.
Workers rushed to the boy’s broken body, but nothing
could be done to save him.
A year later, another young man from an El Salva-
dor village, Gabriel Nuñez, was hired at Omni, where
his older brother also worked. On the morning of Feb.
8, 2000, with the temperature below freezing, Gabriel
was plucking pieces of metal out of a pile of debris. As
the 20-year-old sorted through the snow-covered
trash, he fell through an unmarked open manhole.
Gabriel plunged into the freezing, polluted water of a
drainage hole filled with decomposing plasterboard.
Desperately, Gabriel’s brother, Isaac, wrapped a
rope around his waist while co-workers lowered him
into the hole.
“Be strong, brother!” Isaac shouted. “I could see his
face and he tried to move his mouth, but no words
came out, only faint sounds,” Isaac recalled.
Gabriel’s face was swollen and blue.
“I grabbed him by the clothes that he had,” said
Isaac, who held his breath as he dangled from the
rope. “He was no longer moving.”
Gabriel’s eyes stared upward but saw nothing.
Federal officials investigating the deaths of the two
Salvadoran immigrants found serious safety viola-
tions at Omni and fined the company twice. It was too
late for Fredi and Gabriel.

— Then Perish
DEPRIVED OF A SON. Maria Audina Morán de Canales in El Salvador with a drawing her son, Fredi Canales, made before his death. The drawing is now depicted on his tombstone.
Immigrants at Risk
TODAY: Working in Harm’s Way
Tomorrow: Overlooked by Regulators
Tuesday: Hard Fight for Compensation
Wednesday: Hispanics’ High-Risk Jobs
Thursday: Chinese Laborers’ Plight
During the past decade, a new wave of immigrants
streamed across the borders of the United States, hop-
ing to benefit from this country’s long economic boom.
Many have shared in the wealth, but others like Fredi
and Gabriel, who crossed U.S. borders illegally, have
become ripe for exploitation.
A Newsday investigation has found that New York
has the nation’s highest rate of immigrants killed in
the workplace, with foreign-born workers accounting
for three of every 10 deaths in a six-year period stud-
ied by the newspaper. Newsday found that govern-
ment agencies routinely fail to investigate immigrant
deaths, to enforce laws that would keep employers
from hiring illegal immigrants and to provide timely
compensation for victims and their families.
“Foreign-born workers are concentrated in the more
dangerous areas of the economy — low-wage jobs with
higher risk, with the least amount of training,” says
Dr. Howard Frumkin, an occupational health expert
at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health
in Atlanta. “This is a deeply moral issue for the coun-
try . . . The clothes we wear, the food we eat, often
comes from the exploitation of immigrant workers.”
In a series of articles beginning today, Newsday ex-
amines the stories of immigrants killed and injured
on the job. Often performing jobs nobody else wants,
usually for substandard pay, they were killed as day
laborers on construction crews, shot for cash as
late-night store clerks, and crushed, impaled or elec-
trocuted as landscapers toiling on the lawns of subur-
banites.
They include Mohammad Khokhar, who feared for
his safety in handling large amounts of cash late at
night as a gas station attendant in Huntington Sta-
tion, but needed to keep sending money to his family
in Pakistan. Khokhar’s brother, who also worked at
the station, had complained to their boss about having
to work alone. Not long after, Mohammad Khokhar
was killed by a drug addict, who ran him over with his
car during a robbery in 1993.
Tadeusz Grodzki fractured his skull when he fell
onto a lower level of a building in Bedford-Stuyvesant
A7
Newsday Photo / Moises Saman
when someone tried to rob the 50-year-old construc-
tion worker in 1998. A Polish immigrant, he’s been
waiting three years for the state’s Workers’ Compensa-
tion Board to settle his claim.
Xue Yan Huang, a 64-year-old Chinese immigrant,
slipped and broke her arm at the end of a nearly
100-hour work week in a Sunset Park sweatshop
where she made $2.86 an hour. She lost her job over
the incident, and her boss refused to pay her medical
expenses.
Concern about such workers is so great that the na-
tional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has
formed a team to study the dangers facing immi-
grants. “These are jobs that are at the bottom of the
heap,” says Sherry Baron, head of the new team.
“Once they are in a job, these workers are not likely to
raise any objections on health and safety.”
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2001
See WORKERS on A35
For more on the dangers
immigrants face in the workplace,
go to www.newsday.com
Features include video clips
from interviews conducted
for the series, additional
photographs, and an opportunity
to e-mail us with your response to the series at
replies@newsday.com
A34

Village’s
Prosperity
A Mixed
Blessing
VILLAGE from A6

to get there. But once they make it there, it is very

beneficial for the families and for the village.”
Despite the risks for undocumented workers in
America, Méndez says, the economic benefits are es-
sential for his village and the country as a whole.
El Salvador, a small, heavily populated Central
American nation, emerged just nine years ago from
a bloody civil war that killed 70,000 people.
This year, about 1 million Salvadorans working
in the United States — often as undocumented
workers — will send home an estimated $1.45 bil-
lion to loved ones, according to the country’s central
bank. This flow of money makes up between 6 per-
cent to 17 percent of all household income in this
country and exceeds the country’s annual exports.
Overall, more than $13 billion annually earned Newsday Photos / Moises Saman
by immigrants working in America is sent back to LEFT BEHIND. The son of Cristobal Bonilla, right, died trying to cross into the U.S. with Rudi Antonio Navarrete, left.
their native homelands, not only to Latin America
but also to such places as China, Poland and the
this village.” two friends, along with about 200 people from El
former Soviet Union, according to several studies,
Leonel, looking out at the village from the sec- Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, suddenly
including one by the International Monetary Fund.
ond-story deck of his home, with his injured arm slammed shut. Riding for a few hours in the baking
During the past decade, this outflow of currency
held tightly against his chest, agreed. “When the sun, the train heading toward Texas became an
has increased dramatically. Money made in the
people from Intipucá started emigrating to the oven, cutting off air and raising the temperature to
United States and sent home to El Salvador, Mexi-
U.S., this was a remote town; the only service we more than 120 degrees.
co, Colombia, Guatemala and the Dominican Repub-
barely had was electricity,” he says. “We had dirt Men and women, packed tightly like cattle,
lic jumped from $1 billion annually in 1980 to $3.7
roads, no telephone, no cable TV, no sewers and no screamed for help. Some began fainting on the floor.
billion in 1990 to $8 billion by 1998, according to a
potable drinking water. After two years, the town Desperately, others banged against the door with
study published last year funded by the Ford Foun-
people started to reconstruct. Now it is still prosper- clubs and axes. “We were able to squeeze a little
dation.
ing, thanks to the people opening near the door and were able to put our
But that relative pros-
who are in the U.S.” hands out for help,” says Navarrete, recalling how
perity often comes with a
In the rural outskirts of their panicked voices and fingers squeezed through
price tag beyond separa-
Intipucá — where young the cracks finally alerted one passerby.
tion from loved ones. For
tenant farmers such as But by the time Mexican immigration authorities
Leonel Salinas, it meant
Rudi Antonio Navarrete halted the moving train, it was too late. Seven peo-
losing the use of a hand
and Cristobal Bonilla ple pulled from the train died, and dozens were
when several fingers were
López eked out meager liv- taken to the hospital, including López, 24.
chopped off accidentally in
ings while paying large “When immigration stopped the train, nearly all
a suburban New Jersey
fees to their landlords from of us were dizzy and suffocating. My head was
restaurant.
corn and other crops — the going round and round,” Navarrete says. “Cristobal
“I was afraid. When acci-
lure of earning dollars in was still alive, but he did not talk. I was OK but
dents happened to illegals
America is almost irresist- had a strong, strong headache. I helped take Cristo-
like me, we were afraid to
ible. An hour’s wage in bal out to the ambulance.”
talk,” Leonel recalls.
America is roughly what a He never saw his friend again.
Faced with great poverty
worker here earns in a day. Navarrete was detained and questioned by Mexi-
a generation ago in Inti-
Leaving their impover- can immigration authorities, who later gave him
pucá, Leonel Salinas says
ished families behind last permission to visit López in the hospital. When he
his family had no choice
year, López and Navar- arrived, he learned that Cristobal had died in the
but to leave.
rete, both boyhood friends, ambulance while being rushed to the hospital. Or-
Despite the pain and
hoped to earn enough U.S. dered to return home by Mexican authorities, Na-
risks, both Leonel and
dollars so they could live varrete feared his friend would be buried in a com-
Maria say the price of
like others here. mon grave like the others who suffocated. “They
working as an immigrant
“You can tell the people told me to call the family, to tell them he had died,
in America was worth it.
in this village have so they could make the funeral arrangements,” he
“There are many here who
changed with the dollars, recalls. “Then I brought back his body.”
live like me, who have had
and that’s what I wanted The good economic times in Intipucá are in
their homes rebuilt, be-
for my family,” says Navar- marked contrast to much of El Salvador, a country
cause of the money that
rete, 26, who lives in a ravaged by poverty, civil war and recent earth-
they earned in the United
mountainside hut with his quakes that killed hundreds and left thousands
States,” says Maria,
pregnant wife and three homeless. American dollars are helping to finance
whose house is fully
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2001

small children who walk new road construction in the village and a small soc-
air-conditioned, with a sat-
about naked or in rags. cer stadium at the end of town.
ellite antenna on the roof
“You can see the change Despite all these benefits, however, Mayor
that allows her to watch
for the better in the lives of Méndez still has mixed feelings. “It is a good thing
all her favorite American
the children they leave be- for our people to go to the United States and help us
television shows. “Every-
hind — the shoes, the get out of the extreme poverty,” he says. “But it af-
thing in this village has
clothes, what they have.” fects the families because the marriages have to sep-
been paid by those who
The journey to America arate and, in the long term, that is not good.”
went to the United States.
by López and Navarrete Méndez believes those who go to the United
This village was once very
ended in April 2000, some- States, even if they stay permanently, will eventual-
poor. If we didn’t go to the
where in the middle of Mex- ly return home. “In general, our people like to be
United States, we’d never DREAM’S PRICE. Maria Albertina Andrade de Salinas on a ico. An open door to the buried here,” he says, “so I assume they will come
have been able to build balcony paved with tiles bought at Home Depot. freight car carrying the back.”
 A35

Their Hopes End in Tragedy

WORKERS from A7
A6

In a 10-month investigation, News-

day found: Journey to America
● More than 500 immigrants were Fredi Canales and Gabriel Nu–ez left El Salvador seeking work and a better life in

killed on the job in New York State in a America. Less than two years later they both were killed on the job.

six-year period from 1994 to 1999, the

majority in New York City and Long Is-
land. In New York, and nearly every
large state where immigrants flocked in
the 1990s, foreign-born workers were
much more likely to die on the job than
those born in America, even taking into
account their significant presence in
the work force. Immigrant workers in
New York were one-third more likely to
die than their native-born counter-
parts.
● More than half of America’s rough-
ly 4,200 immigrant worker fatalities
during those six years were concentrat-
ed in four “gateway” states — Califor-
nia, Texas, Florida and New York, the
traditional ports of entry for immi-
grants seeking opportunities. National-
ly, Hispanics accounted for 54 percent
of all immigrant deaths during this peri-
od, part of what many health experts
warn has become a “disposable” work
force in America’s economy.
● Nationally, one of every three im-
migrants killed on the job died as a re- Jose Martinez, Fredi Canales’ uncle, in front of Omni Recycling.
sult of homicide or some other form of
workplace violence — more than twice Concepción de Oriente, El Salvador: Westbury: Fredi lived here with his

the rate for native-born American work- Where Fredi grew up and where he father. At a family gathering Fredi,

ers. And nowhere do immigrant work- Fredi Canales Gabriel Nuñez left in 1997, seeking work in the who just turned 17, worried aloud

ers die from violent crime in greater United States. about the dangers of his job.

numbers than in New York City, where

61 percent of foreign-born workers CANADA San Miguel, El Salvador: Where Long Island: After working at a cannoli

Gabriel was reared, and left in 1996 factory here, where Fredi and his
killed on the job died because of work-
for America, where his older brother, father were also employed at times,
place violence. Experts say many of NY Isaac, was already working. Nu–ez gets a job at Omni in 1999 as
these deaths could be prevented if work-
ers who drive livery cabs or work be- New York City Matamoros, Mexico: The Mexican
a garbage picker.

hind retail counters were protected by Long border town across from Brownsville, Omni Recycling of West Babylon: Fredi

basic safety measures. Island Texas, where Fredi and his uncle, joined his uncle at this garbage

● The U.S. Immigration and Natural- with the help of smugglers, swam recycling plant and was killed in 1998

ization Service, which is responsible for across the Rio Grande to gain entry when he plummeted 18 feet from

preventing immigrants from being Houston Atlantic illegally to the United States. atop garbage-sorting machinery.

hired illegally, punishes only a small Ocean

percentage of American firms who em-
ploy undocumented workers, even
when these workplaces have a history
With the help of a local smuggler, While working the day shift, Nu–ez
¥ ¥
Gabriel travels for two months toward accidentally fell into an unmarked
Brownsville the U.S. border before sneaking open manhole in the north section of

across in the compartment of a long- the Omni plant, where construction

of injury or death. Because of their ille-
gal status in this country, many undocu-
mented workers are vulnerable to
abuse, fearing they will be deported if
they complain about unsafe and un-
healthy job conditions.
Matamoros
haul truck. He makes his way to New and landscaping debris is dumped.
York. Two workers, including his brother,
Concepción Houston, Texas: Isaac, tried to save him. But,
de Oriente
Fredi and his uncle,
surrounded by noxious fumes and
Caribbean Sea
Jose Martinez, met friends and later
freezing water, he died in the hole on
San Miguel took a van with other undocumented

● Hundreds of immigrant deaths go

Feb. 8, 2000.
EL SALVADOR workers to New York's Port Authority,

uninvestigated by the U.S. Occupation- 0 MILES 1200 where Fredi's father met them.

al Safety and Health Administration,

the main regulator of workplace safety.
A Newsday analysis of federal labor
records shows that the agency fails to
concentrate its resources on most of the
industries and states in which immi-
grants are dying in substantial num-
bers.
● In New York, families of for-
eign-born workers killed or injured are
ill-equipped to deal with the maze of Two unidentified men ride down the
regulations and delays, which can last street of Concepción de Oriente, the
for months — sometimes years — in get- hometown of Canales.
ting workers’ compensation benefits
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2001

mandated by state law. Even when

clear evidence of serious or fatal injury
exists, relatives can wait years to be
compensated for burial costs and to re-
ceive other death benefits.

No Jobs and No Hope

In a rural Salvadoran cemetery filled
with flowers, the mother of Fredi
Canales, dressed in black, weeps by his Gabriel’s mother in San Miguel Port Authority Bus Terminal
graveside. As she recalls his life, Maria Newsday Photos / Moises Saman; Port Authority photo / Julia Gaines
Newsday / Gustavo Pabon
See WORKERS on A36
A36

Dangerous Conditions at Job

WORKERS from A35 Moran,” using his moth-
er’s maiden name, and
Audina Morán de said he was 21. “You find
Canales is still unable to it difficult to get a job if
fathom why her young they know that you’re un-
son was killed. derage,” Maria explains.
“My son, my son,” she Omni sits on a sprawl-
cries out suddenly, ing complex just off Well-
wracked in pain and wood Avenue, surrounded
grief. “Why, my God, is by several cemeteries.
my son only a story now?” Trucks and Dumpsters
Fredi was born in 1981 rumble through its gates,
in this small farming com- carrying waste from home
munity tucked in the renovations and construc-
northwest mountains of tion debris. Workers sort
El Salvador, a place 25 through the garbage,
miles from the nearest often by hand, to extract
paved road. Here, chil- materials such as paper
dren roam about in tat- and metals that can be re-
tered clothes, and many cycled and sold. In sum-
homes are huts made of mer, neighbors say the
clay and mud. During El stench of garbage wafts
Salvador’s 12-year civil through the community,
war, which ended in though few have any idea
1992, gunfire and poverty what goes on behind the
were constants. plant’s fences.
To earn money for his But the hazards of the
desperate family, Fredi’s Omni plant are well
father, Fredy René known to local authori-
Canales, a proud, strap- ties.
ping man, went to Hous- “There’s always a prob-
ton in 1986 and worked lem there with injuries,”
three years as a handy- says East Farmingdale
man at a hotel there. “We Fire Chief James Napoli-
are so poor in this coun- Newsday Photo / Moises Saman tano, whose ambulance
try, we have to look for LIVING WITH LOSS. An accident at Omni Recycling took the life of Maria Antonia Nuñez Martinez’s son, Gabriel Nuñez. crews have responded 19
work in another country,” different times to emer-
he explains, “so you take gency calls there since
the job whether you like it or not.” tears at the memory. “It was five years without seeing July 1999. “They’re often sorting through garbage by
After a long time apart, Maria went to stay with her my son.” hand, and the immigrant people are the only ones will-
husband in Houston, while her own mother, Eugenia, ing to do it . . . It’s a dirty, nasty job.”
cared for their three children back home. As the el- A Job at Omni To earn extra money, Fredi often worked six days a
dest, Fredi helped his grandmother with every chore, week, as much as 10 hours a day, his family says. The
and the two became very close. “If you asked him to For the next few months, Fredi, his father and Jose
teenager soon learned for himself how dangerous
walk to the store, he’d do it with no problems. He was stayed with a cousin, Hector Reyes, in a run-down work could be at Omni. In one mishap, Fredi was sort-
very obedient,” his grandmother remembers. “He was house that they rented in Westbury. As many as 13 ing through piles of garbage when a large payloader
a little boy when he left for the States. He called me people lived in the house, sleeping in shifts dictated picking up waste almost ran him over. To avoid being
mama.” by work schedules. Hector’s wife, Maria, recalls how
crushed, he fell back against the wall as the machine
By the mid-1990s, Fredi’s mother had returned the thin, dark-haired teenager was so shy he’d look brushed against him, family members say.
home and his father migrated to Long Island, living down at the ground when he talked to her. “When he
In early 1998, Fredi and his uncle, Jose, were pick-
with relatives in Westbury. Determined to help his first came here, he looked like a little boy,” she says. ing through pieces of cardboard when a garbage truck
family, Fredi declared his intention to find work in Fredi joined Hector and his father working at a can-
came by and accidentally dumped its load, burying
America. His parents resisted. His father knew the noli factory in Suffolk County. He enjoyed making and Fredi in a heap of waste more than 10 feet high.
deadly dangers for a 16-year-old boy being smuggled preparing the Italian pastries, but the mini-
“You just killed this man!” Jose remembers yelling
across the U.S. border. Over the telephone, Fredy re- mum-wage job didn’t offer longer shifts that would at the driver of the truck.
minded his son of those who were killed on the jour- allow him to save up money. By mid-September 1997,
He and another worker dug through the rubble
ney. “I don’t want you to suffer,” he remembers telling Jose had found work at Omni Recycling, where work- until they freed the teenager. Fredi was shaken and
him. ers could be hired off the street.
But the young boy persisted. There were no jobs To get a job at Omni, Fredi called himself “Filadelfo slightly hurt. “He was just a little confused,” his uncle
recalls. “He got injured a little in the back.”
and there was no hope in Concepción de Oriente, he ar-
gued, with a logic that seemed undeniable. “I want to The Birthday Party
come to New York, father,” he said. “I want to go and
work so I can help you and the family.”
Workplace Deaths Fredi, who had just turned 17, mentioned his con-
A look at the number of foreign-born workers
Eventually, his parents agreed to let Fredi make cerns about Omni to family and friends gathered for a
who die in the workplace and their percentage
the trip to America with his 32-year-old uncle, Jose small birthday party for Hector’s niece on a Sunday af-
of all workplace deaths, 1994-99.
Martinez, who promised the family he’d watch out for ternoon, March 1, 1998. They were at a rented Union-
Percent dale house where Fredi now lived with his father and
his half-brother’s son. From the United States, Fredi’s Foreign-born of all
father arranged for the safe transit of his son with a his uncle. Inside the house, there was a festive mood,
local “coyote” — the common term for smugglers who
workplace workplace alive with Tex-Mex food, salsa music and dancing.
transport people illegally across the U.S. southern bor- State deaths deaths “All of the men were gathered on one side of the liv-
der. “The whole trip cost $4,800,” the father explains, New York 504 29.1 ing room, and we talked about our jobs,” recalls his fa-
money pooled from the small wages of family and New Jersey 168 26.3
ther. “That’s when Fredi was telling us about the dan-
friends. gers of his job. I was very concerned. I told him to take
California 975 25.7
In July 1997, Fredi and his uncle rode in a bus good care of himself. Be smart and to look out.”
The teenager asked his cousin, Hector, to help him
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2001

across El Salvador, crossed through Guatemala and Florida 454 20.9

all of Mexico, up to the Rio Grande River. The 24-day Texas 580 19.8
get his old job back at the cannoli factory, where Fre-
trek ended with smugglers bringing them to Matamo- di’s father was working. “ ‘I’ve already been hit twice,’
Arizona 85 19.0 he says, ‘and I think the third time will be bad,’ ” Hec-
ros, a Mexican city across the border from Browns-
ville, Texas. District of Columbia 20 18.9 tor recalls, Fredi’s trembling voice still fresh in his
“We went across the river by night,” Martinez re- memory.
Massachusetts 61 15.4
members. “We had to swim and we had to be very care- Before they could talk more, Hector’s wife grabbed
ful to avoid the police.” Once over the border, they jour- Connecticut 32 14.0 Fredi by the hand and began dancing with him in the
neyed to Houston and then headed for New York, Illinois 190 13.4 middle of the floor. The topic never came up again at
riding in a van with other immigrants. the party. But Hector didn’t forget Fredi’s request.
U.S. total 4,254 11.4 “The next day, I checked with my boss at the cannoli
At the Port Authority building in Manhattan, Fre-
di’s father waited on the sidewalk to greet his son. SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Census of Fatal factory and asked if Fredi could come back, and he
“When Fredi got out, he hugged me and he kissed Occupational Injuries.
said it would be OK,” Hector remembers.
me,” his father remembers, his own eyes welling with Newsday / Gustavo Pabon That day, Monday, March 2, 1998, Fredi ate lunch
 A37

once. “I wanted to see where he fell, and

Timeline of Events
Some key dates in safety hazard violations at Omni Recycling of West Babylon.
March 2, 1998
Suffolk police called at 1:55
p.m. to Omni Recycling in
West Babylon to
investigate death of Fredi
Canales, a 17-year-old
garbage worker who fell to
his death while cleaning
debris jammed in a large
recycling machine. U.S.
Occupational Safety and
Health Administration
officials are alerted and
they make initial review.
March 3-5, 1998
OSHA officials conduct a
full safety investigation
triggered by CanalesÕ death
and find several ÒseriousÓ
safety problems, including:
- Employees exposed to
hazards including falls of Fredi Canales died from a fall from a garbage sorting machine inside this building, according
up to 20 feet, chemical
burns, garbage
throughout the site,
resulting in lacerations,
compound fractures,
skin, eye and lung
irritation, and death.
- Employees known as
ÒpickersÓ are not
protected from being hit
by several garbage
trucks, loaders and
dangerous equipment at
the plant.
- Employees have to jump
into trash piles to avoid
being hit by large
payloaders driven in
reverse by operators who
didnÕt see them.
- Employees have been
accidentally scooped up
in the bucket of a
payloader and dumped
into trash piles, or buried from fumes and freezing water.
with metal and tires.
- Employees are lifted
more than 10 feet by
forklift on wooden pallets Òinformal settlement
or trash bales without fall agreementÓ
protection.
then I went back to leave some flowers
there on another day,” Fredy recalls. “No
one ever gave me an answer,” he says about
the reasons for his son’s death. “I am still in
doubt about how it all happened.”
The Investigation
Suffolk police started investigating Fre-
di’s death, and within two hours an OSHA
inspector arrived. They found many prob-
lems at Omni.
Among the risky practices uncovered in
the investigation during the next few weeks
was the handling of jams in the garbage
sorting machine. OSHA found that workers
were instructed to clear the machine when
it jammed by going out onto the beam sup-
porting the machine. “Employees were re-
quired to perform this work while either sit-
ting or standing on the I beam, which is
open on all sides, exposing employees to
falls of approximately 18 feet to the con-
crete floor below,” the investigative report
states.
Newsday file Photo
Fredi died, OSHA concluded, because he
to owner Anthony Core, shown here in a 1996 photo.
fell off the beam while he was cutting away
nylon bands, wire and stretch wrap stuck
in the conveyor belt.
That wasn’t the only safety violation un-
covered by the inspectors. Workers came in
close contact with 10-ton wheel loaders mov-
ing at “a very fast pace.” In another inci-
dent, a payloader scooped up a worker and
dumped him in a pile of garbage, and he
“had to be dug out from under the tires and
metal that was piled on top.”
OSHA reported that a “devastating fire”
had temporarily shut down garbage recy-
cling in part of the plant. Workers were
“sometimes called upon to fight garbage
fires” at Omni with inadequate water hoses
and faced the risk of being engulfed “on or
in the garbage piles.”
OSHA records say these violations
weren’t just isolated problems, but hazards
that exposed large numbers of people to
danger. The serious violations included a
lack of emergency stop devices for garbage
pickers handling refuse near conveyor
Newsday Photo / David L. Pokress
Gabriel Nuñez fell into an unmarked drainage hole on the northern side of the property and died belts, employees being carried on pallets
and trash bales elevated higher than 10
July 29, 1998 hole filled with freezing hazards involving missing feet by forklifts, and a lack of guardrails,
fire alarms and other safety measures to
OSHA officials send water. Fire officials and safety guarding for
police respond, and alert machines with rotating avoid serious injury or death to workers.
OSHA. gears and moving parts. Four months after Fredi’s death, OSHA
outlining
letter to Omni,
problems, and - Automatic sprinkler
concluded its investigation and issued
how the company will
February 9, 2000
system, fire detection and
Omni a $28,250 fine for 16 serious safety vi-

- Employees climb along a correct them. The total OSHA investigators olations and other problems. As often hap-
conduct a fatality alarm system not pens under agency practice, the total fine
narrow beam, about 18 penalty for the safety investigation, interviewing maintained continuously — based on OSHA guidelines concerning
feet above concrete floor, violations found is $28,250 workers, including one who in proper operating the number and severity of the safety viola-
to dislodge garbage and, as is common practice was hospitalized after condition. tions discovered – was later reduced to
caught in conveyor parts by OSHA, the amount is trying to save Nu–ez. No signs posted to warn $20,000 in return for the company’s agree-
of recycling machine, reduced to an amended During inspection, federal
-
employees of the hazard ment to correct the problems according to
without standard penalty of $20,000. investigators find several of potential methane gas. various timetables.
guardrails. OSHA officials February 8, 2000 safety problems at Omni, Omni’s president, Anthony Core, de-
believe Canales fell off While working on the north including:
August 9, 2000 clined to comment about the two fatal acci-
this beam. yard of the plant, Omni OSHA and Omni agree to a
- Manhole that is nearly
dents at his garbage plant. He did say
- Garbage fires break out employee, Gabriel Nu–ez, 14 feet deep is not settlement in which the Omni is a safe place to work, comparable in
in the plant, and a young illegal immigrant guarded by standard original penalty of $19,850 risk to other waste companies. “There’s a
employees asked to put from El Salvador, falls into cover or someone for the safety violations lot of incidents in this type of business,”
them out run the risk of an unmarked and open guarding it. found after Nu–ezÕ death is Core said. “To look at Omni and say, ‘Two
being engulfed in the reduced
drainage hole. At the time, - When employees work in agrees to establish a safetyto $16,000. Omni in two years?’ — that might be an unfair dis-
garbage piles because of he was picking cement, tinction.”
insufficient fire hoses and plastic bottles, metal scrap confined spaces, thereÕs inspection program to Omni was purchased by its current
fire alarms to adequately and wood from a pile of no testing for lack of identify safety hazards at owner in a bankruptcy court sale in the
deal with a blaze. demolition debris. Despite oxygen or potential its site. In writing to the mid-1990s. Although the company is run by
- Employees operating attempts by others to save flammable atmosphere. agency, Omni also outlines its president, Core, who also maintains a
powered industrial trucks him, Nu–ez dies from - Repeat violations are how it will correct safety private law practice in Mineola, court docu-
were not trained. exposure to fumes in the found for employee problems. ments in a civil lawsuit contended Omni is
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2001

controlled by Core’s uncle, Emedio Fazzini,

a Long Island garbage carter. That lawsuit
Newsday / Gustavo Pabon eventually was dismissed. In court docu-
ments filed by the New York City Trade
with his uncle, Jose, and the other garbage-pickers. could see his back was broken and his skull was de- Waste Commission in a lawsuit in federal court last
For a while, they played a little soccer, kicking the stroyed. He was bleeding.” year, Fazzini is identified by both New York City po-
ball among heaps of garbage. Then Fredi returned to Jose lifted his nephew in his arms and turned him lice and FBI investigators as an associate of organized
the large open warehouse, where an 18-foot-high con- over, face up. Someone else felt for a pulse and con- crime figures. In that suit, Fazzini denied any involve-
veyor belt feeds garbage into a giant baling machine. firmed Fredi was dead. ment with organized crime. While Fazzini helped in
No one saw what happened next. Fredi’s father had just returned home from work the original purchase, Core insists he has no direct in-
Jose recalls going to another part of the warehouse when police arrived and informed him of his son’s terest in the company, and he says Fazzini is not in-
and soon hearing his name called. “By the time I got death. Before he left for El Salvador with his son’s re-
down there, he was already dead,” Jose recalls. “I mains, the elder Canales visited Omni more than See WORKERS on A38
A38

The
Fallen
Hopes
Some of the
hundreds of immigrants
Come
To
who have died
since 1990:

Name: Eduardo Daniel Name: Elhadji Gaye

Tragic
Age: 21 Age: 33
State: New York State: New York
Place Of Birth: Mexico Place Of Birth: Senegal
Date: Nov. 23, 1999 Date: Nov. 14, 1997
Details: Killed on construc- Details: Found lying out-
tion site in Williamsburg
when building collapsed.
Owner pleaded guilty to
lying to OSHA about a prior
collapse at another site
and agreed to pay a
side his livery cab with a
single bullet wound in the
back of his head after a
robbery attempt. End
WORKERS from A37
A36
$1 million fine.
volved with organized crime. Core, who is
also Fazzini’s attorney, said his uncle
would not consent to an interview. Core
says that Omni never hires undocument-
ed workers knowingly and that the plant
has a “meticulous” procedure to avoid em-
ploying them, suggesting only that it is
difficult to detect improper immigration
documents.

Tragedy Befalls a Countryman

Name: Luis Gomez
Age: 32
State: New York
Place Of Birth: Ecuador
Date: July 10,1998
Details: Buried alive in
construction site building
collapse by wet cement.
Name: Jacek Piotrowicz
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2001
Name: Tarek Abdel Name: Mohammad
Hamid Khokhar
Age: 27 Age: 33
State: New York State: New York
Place Of Birth: Egypt Place Of Birth: Pakistan
Date: December 22, 1993 Date: May 20, 1993
Details: Random shots Details: Fatally injured
struck him inside his yel- when robber struck him
low cab, killing him and with his Ford Bronco, died
wounding a passenger. two days later. Assailant
released from prison less
than three years later.
Name: Abdul Pappu Name: Jean Scutt
Name: Luis Montecino
Age: 32
State: New York
Place Of Birth: El
Salvador
Date: June 28, 1999
Details: Electrocuted
while trimming trees
outside a home in
Dix Hills.
Name: Kim Hong Tim
Gabriel Nuñez grew up in a rural area
near the Pacific coast of El Salvador, toil-
ing in any job he could find amid the corn
plantations and cattle ranches. “He liked
working with the land,” recalls his moth-
er, Maria Antonia Nuñez Martinez. “He
used to take care of the cattle and walk
them along the road.”
His older brother, Isaac, left first for
the United States and then arranged for
his teenage brother to follow in 1996.
With the help of a local smuggler, Gabriel
traveled for two months toward the U.S.
border before sneaking across in the com-
partment of a long-haul truck.
In Westbury, Gabriel shared a small
yellow house with several friends and
family, three blocks from where Fredi
lived. For a brief period, Gabriel even
worked at the same cannoli factory where
Fredi and his father were employed. “I
knew Gabriel and his brother, Isaac,” re-
calls Fredy, the father. “We used to go to
the factory together and I’d go over to
their house.”
Isaac already worked at Omni and
helped his teenage brother get a job there
in 1999 as a garbage picker. He says Gab-
riel dutifully sent money home, some-
times $150 a month, and dreamed of re-
turning to El Salvador.
Gabriel began as a night-shift worker.
Though he was only 20, he claimed to be
26 to make sure he got the job.
By Feb. 8, 2000, Gabriel had joined the
day shift, assigned to a large yard in the
north section of the plant, where construc-

Age: 35 Age: 40 Age: 43 Age: 20 tion and landscaping debris is dumped.

Gabriel began that day sorting through a
State: New York State: New York State: New York State: New York pile of concrete debrisnear a drainage
Place Of Birth: Poland Place Of Birth: Pakistan Place Of Birth: Haiti Place Of Birth: hole, looking for pieces of aluminum and
Date: June 29, 1993 Date: Oct. 16, 1993 Date: April 16, 2000 Cambodia other materials to recycle.
Date: May 17, 2000 “We were working outside for about
Details: Shot during rob- Details: Shot while driv- Details: Livery cab driver two hours when I saw my co-worker step
bery after fixing flat on an ing his cab. shot in the back of the Details: Shot while work- on a spot and the spot caved in,” another
expressway. neck. ing for an unregistered immigrant worker, Noel Alkantara, told
cab company. police in a written statement. “He fell
into a hole. I ran to tell the other workers
Compiled from staff, correspondent and wire reports and to get help.”
An Omni supervisor, Will Bonilla, ran
Newsday to the hole and called for an ambulance

PROMISE DIED WITH HIM. Fredi Canales, in framed photo, had hoped to bring wealth to his family in El Salvador. Family members mourning
him include father Fredy René, standing, mother Maria Audina Morán de Canales, right, and grandmother Eugenia Rodriguez de Morán.
on his two-way radio. When he peered
into the 12-foot hole, he saw Gabriel cov-
ered in freezing water. Signs of hypoth-
ermia were already apparent, but Bonil-
la could see Gabriel was still breathing.
Quickly, Bonilla tied a hose around
his waist and other workers lowered
him into the hole, feet first. When Bonil-
la reached Gabriel, he tried pulling him
out of the murky water, but he was over-
come by the noxious gas in the hole and
was pulled out by other workers.
In a nearby building, Isaac was work-
ing on a trash compactor when he saw
workers running frantically to the out-
side yard. He followed them out of curi-
osity. “Run faster — it’s your brother
who fell down the hole,” someone
screamed, as Isaac remembers.
Down in the hole, his brother ap-
peared dazed. Isaac grabbed a rope, tied
it around himself, and asked workers to
Newsday Photos / Moises Saman
hold the other end as he descended into
the dark hole. He beseeched Gabriel not
to give up, promising to rescue him in
time. “I didn’t think of my own safety,”
Isaac recalls. “I just wanted to save Gab-
riel.”
As he neared, however, Isaac didn’t
see any movement.
He seized Gabriel’s shirt but there
was no response. At that very moment,
dangling from a rope and nearly faint
A39
from the fumes, Isaac realized his broth-
er was dead.
Slowly, the other workers pulled him
up to ground level, his eyes filled with
tears from the noxious gases and his
own grief. Gabriel’s lifeless body was
left in the hole until the local fire depart-
ment and ambulance crews arrived.
The Inspectors Come Back
An autopsy concluded Gabriel, an oth-
erwise healthy man, died from fumes
and exposure to the freezing water. The
Suffolk police crime lab theorized hydro-
gen sulfide fumes were caused by plas-
terboard rotting in the drainage hole.
Once again, OSHA inspectors found
several serious violations at the plant.
And they also discovered that many of
the safety violations noted after Fredi’s
death were never corrected, though the
Canales investigation had not spotted
any problems with manhole covers at
Omni.
Records indicate a steel plate had
been placed over the hole and a movable
concrete divider placed around it before
the accident occurred. But for reasons
that were never made clear — some be-
lieve a snowplow accidentally removed
the plate — the hole didn’t have a cover-
ing when Gabriel was working there.
In this second investigation, OSHA in-
vestigators cited Omni for repeat viola-
tions of safety problems at 12 different
locations within the garbage plant —
problems that the company originally
agreed to correct in 1998 after Fredi
Canales’ death. Several of these prob-
lems focused on the lack of protective
guards on machines that could cause se-
vere injuries. When asked by OSHA in-
spectors, the company suggested their
workers “got tired” of the safety guards
on their machines and removed them,
records show, though inspectors
couldn’t find these safety devices any-
where at the plant.
Omni’s president would not discuss
the second incident directly. At the time
of his death, however, Core did defend
the plant’s safety record, saying, “We
have a good compliance record. This
was an unforeseeable tragic event.”
Omni eventually negotiated a fine
amount of $16,000 with the government
— a lower sum than the agency’s fine fol-
lowing Canales’ death — even though
some of those violations were rated as
the most severe possible under agency
guidelines. That settlement with the
company included fines for repeat viola-
tions.
OSHA officials defend their handling
of the two workers’ deaths at Omni, say-
ing their penalties are dictated by agen-
cy guidelines that peg fines to the num-
ber and severity of problems uncovered.
But the agency’s local director acknowl-
edged that immigrants are increasingly
vulnerable to hazardous workplaces.
“I think a lot of these employers know
that they want to earn money and that
they are willing to do dangerous things
that others may not,” says Harvey Sha-
piro, OSHA’s area director for Long Is-
land. “There’s a lack of training in these
jobs. Often it’s nonexistent. They [immi-
grant workers] won’t complain as much,
and they are trying to eke out a living.
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2001
They are often afraid that the federal
government will find out if they are
here in this country illegally.”
‘This Anger Inside of Me’
For their families, the deaths were dev-
astating, a bitter lesson of what can hap-
pen to immigrant workers in America.
The mother of Gabriel Nuñez mourns
him as she sits in her tiny, cinder block
apartment in urban San Miguel, over-
See WORKERS on A40
A40

Newsday Photo / Moises Saman

PAIN OF DEATH. Maria Audina Morán de Canales stands at

the tomb of her son, Fredi Canales, in Concepción de Oriente.
Where
Bitter Immigrants
Work
Lessons
States with the highest
percentage of foreign-born
workers in 1999

For Kin
Number of Number of Percent
State foreign-born workers U.S.-born workers foreign-born
California 4,740,000 11,007,000 30.1

New York 1,968,000 6,433,000 23.4

WORKERS from A38

A39 Hawaii 121,000 442,000 21.5

Florida 1,409,000 5,674,000 19.9

looking a swamp smelling of sewage. She refers to
Nevada 169,000 732,000 18.8
her lost son as “El Finado” — the Dead One. “I didn’t
want him to leave for America,” she says. “I heard New Jersey 743,000 3,292,000 18.4
many stories of men being hurt on the way, or in Arizona 370,000 1,924,000 16.1
their jobs, in the United States. My son went to
America so we could have something of our own in Dist. of Columbia 38,000 221,000 14.7

the future. Now I am alone.” Texas 1,393,000 8,406,000 14.2

On Long Island, her son Isaac continued working
Massachusetts 400,000 2,773,000 12.6
at Omni after Gabriel’s death because the family
was desperate for money. Despite his grief, Isaac felt Illinois 733,000 5,353,000 12.0
compelled to return, day after day, to the place
Maryland 296,000 2,382,000 11.1
where his brother lost his life, until he just couldn’t
stand it anymore and quit. Connecticut 178,000 1,481,000 10.7

“It’s hard to think of my brother,” Isaac sighed, as Rhode Island 49,000 435,000 10.1
he talked recently about the dreams they once had.
“Every time I went to Omni, I would have this anger Washington 279,000 2,656,000 9.5

inside of me and feel very bad.” Oregon 155,000 1,503,000 9.3

Mario DuQue, a relative of Fredi Canales who also
Colorado 189,000 2,006,000 8.6
worked at Omni, shares those feelings. “They would
put us, Salvadorans, in to do all the bad and heavy Virginia 280,000 3,138,000 8.2
work. We did not speak the language, and we were New Mexico 56,000 712,000 7.3
immigrants without our legal status, so they gave us
all the bad jobs. And if you did not like it, they’d kick Alaska 20,000 275,000 6.8

you out or you could leave,” says DuQue, who has SOURCE: Newsday analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Newsday File Photos; AP File Photos
since returned to El Salvador. “I don’t know why Newsday / Gustavo Pabon
they have to wait until someone dies until they do
something about safety.”
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2001

As U.S. authorities conducted their investigation,
Fredi’s body was buried in his Salvadoran village’s
crowded cemetery, one of several local young people
killed after leaving to work in America. His tomb-
stone is etched with a drawing of praying hands and
a crucifix that Fredi drew on a piece of paper shortly
before his death. There is also an inscription: Fredi
who loves God and God loves him. Back on Long Is-
land, Jose quit Omni after his nephew’s death and
found a new job. He shakes his head with great re-
morse as he thinks about the young man he tried to
watch out for. “He was so young,” laments Jose, a
strong, muscular man humbled to tears by the boy’s
tragedy. “He didn’t really enjoy anything of life.”
Newsday reporter Thomas Maier spent 10 months in-
vestigating immigrant occupational deaths and the agen-
cies involved in regulating American workplaces. Along
with photographer Moises Saman, he interviewed dozens
of immigrant workers, business owners, state and federal
officials and the families of victims killed on the job.
In preparing this report, hundreds of police, court and
government documents were obtained and reviewed as a re-
sult of more than 20 Freedom of Information requests. Com-
puter-assisted reporting specialist Richard J. Dalton Jr.
conducted the analysis of several databases, including
records from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Census of Fatal
Occupational Injuries; inspection records from the U.S. Oc-
cupational Safety and Health Administration; and sanctions
levied by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Newsday also reviewed records from the New York
State Workers’ Compensation Board, the national Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention and state and local
health departments.
Additional research assistance for these stories was
provided by Michael Carney and Dorothy Guadagno.
Translation of some interviews was assisted by Saman
and Ana Celina Guerra Moran, who was paid to provide
translation services.
The project was supervised by Enterprise Editor Mark
J. Rochester.
 CONTENTS

THE IRE JOURNAL 20 – 27 INS ABUSES

Series exposes corruption,
TABLE OF CONTENTS ineptitude and racism
MARCH/APRIL 2002 By Brent Walth and Rich Read
The Oregonian
4 FOCUSING TRAINING EFFORTS
INVISIBLE LABOR
By Brant Houston
Immigrants exploited,
endangered in the workplace
5 NEWS BRIEFS AND MEMBER NEWS
By Thomas Maier
Newsday
6 PLANNING UNDER WAY
FOR SAN FRANCISCO
CONFERENCE U.S. CUSTOMS
By Gina Bramucci
More than people cross the borders
By Bill Conroy
The IRE Journal
San Antonio Business Journal
8 SNOW JOB
Winter Olympic goodies 28 LIVES AT RISK
courtesy of Uncle Sam Emergency room lapses,
By Donald L. Barlett
apparent cover-ups revealed
By Valeri Williams
and James B. Steele
WFAA - Dallas
Time Inc.

9 LEGAL CORNER 30 CLOSER LOOK AT 990S REVEALS HIDDEN COSTS

Alternative dispute resolution often IN NONPROFIT FUNDRAISING
By Harvy Lipman
chosen to bar reporters
The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Richard C. Reuben

10 HIGHWAY HAZARD 32 PASSING NOTES

Medical certification flaws
keep unfit truckers on the road
By Steve Twedt
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Judge, clerk make ethnic slurs;
investigation prompts reprimand
By Karen Dorn Steele
The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review

13 WALKING,TALKING 33 USING THE GAO WEB SITE

By Carolyn Edds
THE MILITARY BEAT
The IRE Journal
By Steve Weinberg
The IRE Journal
34 POLICE NETWORK ABUSED
Information used for private gains, vendettas
14 STACKED DECK FAVORS By M. L. Elrick
GOVERNMENT SECRECY
Detroit Free Press
Better Government Association
study of state public records laws –
and survey of IRE members – shows ABOUT THE COVER
citizens are at disadvantage.
By Charles Davis
Angel Avila, 15, from Honduras, was
for The IRE Journal nicknamed “The Cherub.” He was arrested
for shoplifting and gave up his request
16 DETAILING QUESTIONABLE to live in the U.S. after two months in
POLICE SHOOTINGS a juvenile detention center where he had
REQUIRED EXTENSIVE SEARCH OF been in fights, pepper-sprayed and held in
DOCUMENTS
By David S. Fallis solitary confinement.
The Washington Post Cover story, page 20-27

Cover photo by
Michael Lloyd, The Oregonian

MARCH/APRIL 2002 3

A Hard Time in Harlem
Cuomo finds audience cool, McCall welcomed warmly
By Jessica Kowal
STAFF WRITER
Heckled at times at the Rev. Al
Sharpton’s Harlem headquarters,
Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Andrew Cuomo pressed aggressively
for black votes yesterday by saying op-
ponent H. Carl McCall hadn’t “spoken
out enough” on civil rights issues and
had failed to improve the city’s public
schools.
Cuomo, the former U.S. secretary of
Housing and Urban Development, la-
beled McCall as “someone from Alba-
ny” and called himself “a reformer.”
He also said McCall’s past post as pres-
ident of the city Board of Education
was “a reason not to run, frankly.”
He also casually trashed McCall’s
long record as an elected official, while
defending his own work history as a
first-time candidate best known for
being former Gov. Mario Cuomo’s son.
“If you want one of the people who’s
now running Albany . . . then you’ll
re-elect someone from Albany,” Cuomo
said. “Not being elected, I think, is ac-
tually a good thing. I don’t want to be
Search for Last SLA Suspect
Kilgore has been
hiding out since ’76
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sacramento, Calif. — He’s likely
still out there, somewhere. He is proba-
bly gray as middle age settles in and
he escapes his radical past.
James William Kilgore hasn’t been
seen since he fled federal charges in
1976 as a member of the Symbionese
Liberation Army, the group that kid-
napped newspaper heiress Patty
Hearst.
“He’s been in the wind for over 20
years, and we have no solid leads on
his whereabouts,” said Sacramento
County Sheriff’s Sgt. James Lewis.
Kilgore, 54, was charged last week
with murder in a deadly bank holdup
in 1975 that was blamed on the SLA.
Four suspected accomplices were
charged and taken into custody. But in-
vestigators say Kilgore is nowhere to
be found.
He allegedly met with Hearst in a
cheap Las Vegas motel room in late
September 1974. They took a bus to
Sacramento to rendezvous with other
members of the SLA who had escaped
a Los Angeles police shoot-out that
spring. They were joined by Steven
and Kathleen Soliah, Emily and Bill
Harris, and intermittently by Michael
Bortin, Hearst told investigators after
her eventual capture.
There they planned the bank rob-
bery that would result in the death of
42-year-old Myrna Opsahl, Sacramen-
to County prosecutors said in court fil-
ings last week. The Harrises, Bortin,
Kathleen Soliah and Kilgore were
charged with Opsahl’s murder Wednes-
day. Steven Soliah was acquitted in
the bank robbery in 1976. Kathleen So-
liah is now known as Sara Jane Olson.
She was sentenced last week for her
role in the failed 1975 attempt to blow
up Los Angeles police cars.
Kilgore was an intellectual and calm
NATION / STATE
part of the system, because the system
stinks.”
In contrast, McCall, the state’s high-
est-elected black official, who is oppos-
ing Cuomo in the Democratic primary,
was enthusiastically applauded by the
same group of hundreds of activists
during an earlier, separate appear-
ance at Sharpton’s annual Martin
Luther King Jr. Day celebration.
Sharpton has endorsed McCall but
said he invited Cuomo to let his sup-
porters hear from both candidates.
After declaring that the primary
“isn’t about race,” McCall wasted little
time in reminding the audience that
Cuomo had described McCall’s candi-
dacy as part of a “racial contract” be-
tween black and Latino officials who
supported Bronx Borough President
Fernando Ferrer over former Public
Advocate Mark Green in the mayor’s
race.
Describing himself as “probably the
most experienced person who’s ever
run” for New York’s governor, McCall
said the contest should be about “quali-
fications and experience.”
FBI Photos via AP
The FBI released these old photos of Kilgore
and a computer composite, right, showing
how he may look today. Kilgore, who is
wanted in the deadly 1975 bank robbery,
has been in hiding since 1976. He is
believed to be living in North America.
voice of reason in those frantic days,
Hearst recounted in her 1982 book,
“Every Secret Thing.”
“He’s clearly more intelligent than
the average criminal, to sever any ties
in the Bay area that might lead us to
him,” said Andrew Black, a spokesman
for the San Francisco FBI office, which
is leading the search. “He’s smart
enough, we feel, to establish a new
identity, to establish credit.”
Profilers have said Kilgore probably
lives in North America. He was a
sports fanatic with an undergraduate
degree in economics who worked as a
cook and house painter during his radi-
cal years.
McCall said he had increased the
number of nonwhite employees in the
state comptroller’s office and sought
minority- and women-owned financial
businesses to invest the state’s pen-
sion money.
Gov. George Pataki, who appeared
at a City Hall event celebrating King’s
birthday, was not invited to Sharp-
ton’s headquarters. But Sharpton said
Pataki had graciously invited him to
an Albany breakfast for King Day
eight years ago.
As has become an annual tradition
for Democrats running for office, Mc-
Call and Cuomo appeared at Sharp-
ton’s event to answer questions from
black journalists and activists. McCall
was treated gently. Cuomo initially
danced around the questions, but even-
tually shoved back, gaining points for
toughness.
Asked how he could compete against
Pataki “when you have no track
record,” Cuomo replied: “Reminds me
of the race of Mark Green against Mr.
Bloomberg.”
The audience, no fans of Green,
heartily applauded.
Investigators have no reason to be-
lieve Kilgore is dead — but he could
be. He hasn’t been arrested even on a
petty charge, because his fingerprints
haven’t turned up.
The FBI recently offered a $20,000
reward and unveiled a bust and com-
puter-enhanced photographs of what a
clean-shaven, gray-haired Kilgore
might look like now. He was featured
on TV’s “America’s Most Wanted,” and
tips poured in — more than 200 in the
last two years. They yielded no suc-
cess. “It appears he’s able to blend into
society,” Black said. “He’s probably
somebody’s neighbor.”
A15
Senate
To Probe
Worker
Safety
By Thomas Maier
STAFF WRITER
A U.S. Senate subcommittee
will hold a special hearing next
month looking into the dangers
faced by immigrant workers, con-
gressional sources confirmed,
with an eye toward new legisla-
tion to improve immigrant work-
er safety.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
(D-N.Y.) requested an oversight
hearing in August after a News-
day series revealed that New
York has the nation’s highest
rate of immigrants killed on the
job, that compensation for inju-
ries is often delayed for years,
and that hundreds of deaths
among foreign-born workers
were unexamined by federal safe-
ty officials during the past de-
cade.
The hearing was originally set
for Sept. 25, but was postponed
after the Sept. 11 terrorist at-
tacks and the October anthrax
exposure in a key Senate office
building. The newly scheduled
Feb. 27 hearing will take place
before the Senate’s employment,
safety and training subcommit-
tee, headed by Sen. Paul Well-
stone (D-Minn.)
Several New York area advoca-
cy groups for immigrant workers
have been contacted about testi-
fying, but a final list of speakers
has not yet been decided. Senate
staffers say the hearing will seek
a wide range of testimony about
the growing problem of immi-
grant workers killed or injured
each year.
Statements are expected from
officials with the U.S. Occupa-
tional Safety and Heath Adminis-
tration, which oversees work-
place safety conditions, and the
National Institute for Occupa-
tional Safety and Health, an arm
of the federal Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention,
which has formed a team to
study the problem. Safety and
health experts from other
groups, including the AFL-CIO
and farm worker organizations,
are also being asked to provide
NEWSDAY, TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2002
testimony.
A Wellstone aide, who asked
not to be identified, said lawmak-
ers will be particularly interest-
ed in problems in industrial
areas, such as New York, where
day laborers often are exposed to
risks in construction and late-
night retail jobs, as well as agri-
cultural states such as Califor-
nia. After the hearing, the com-
mittee will decide what new laws
or policies are needed to improve
conditions, the aide added.