The booming popularity of countertops made of engineered stone has driven a new epidemic of silicosis, an incurable lung disease, researchers have found.

“Nobody uses water,” one man in a Dodgers cap said in Spanish when Maria Cabrera approached, holding flyers about silicosis, an incurable and suffocating disease that has devastated dozens of workers across the state and killed men who have barely reached middle age.

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The disease dates back centuries, but researchers say the booming popularity of countertops made of engineered stone, which has much higher concentrations of silica than many kinds of natural stone, has driven a new epidemic of an accelerated form of the suffocating illness. As the dangerous dust builds up and scars the lungs, the disease can leave workers short of breath, weakened and ultimately suffering from lung failure.

“You can get a transplant,” Cabrera told the man in Spanish, “but it won’t last.”

In California, it has begun to debilitate young workers, largely Latino immigrants who cut and polish slabs of engineered stone. Instead of cropping up in people in their 60s or 70s after decades of exposure, it is now afflicting men in their 20s, 30s or 40s, said Dr. Jane Fazio, a pulmonary critical care physician who became alarmed by cases she saw at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. Some California patients have died in their 30s.

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  • merc
    203·
    1 year ago

    to debilitate young workers, largely Latino immigrants

    in an industry where immigrant workers typically labor in small shops and are often paid in cash

    made their rounds at the parking lot of the Home Depot in San Fernando, where laborers in long-sleeve shirts waited for people to drive up and offer them work.

    In the effort to be politically correct and not say “illegal immigrants”, they prevent the reader from knowing the true extent of the problem.

    When an employer is willing to break employment laws related to immigration, they may also be more likely to break other laws, like workplace safety laws. When the employees are illegal immigrants, they’re not as able to complain to authorities when their employers are breaking safety laws.

    If these workers were actual legal immigrants, they could blow the whistle on their employers. If they were unionized their union could shut down the business until their bosses took their safety seriously. But, because they’re illegal immigrants an unethical employer can treat them as disposable – and, pretty much by definition, anybody who is hiring illegal immigrants is an unethical employer.

    The people affected here are largely stone workers. Stone workers used to be extremely powerful. The Freemason fraternal organization started as stone workers who held the secrets of the profession, supervised stoneworker qualifications, controlled their interactions with clients, regulated their interactions with the state, etc. Now, because of the widespread acceptance of illegal immigration, not only are stoneworkers not powerful, they’re disposable.

    • paysrenttobirds
      71·
      1 year ago

      You make a good point about how workers have been played against each other to the disadvantage of all. However, there is a lot of area between illegal immigrants and full citizens who are comfortable bringing their employers to court. Many legal immigrants spend years in situations where being fired or quitting would mean having to leave the country. Depending on what they’d be going back to or what family and life they have built here in the meantime, they may be less free to rock the boat even if they felt confident in the legal system. Even citizens would be unlikely to take a stand without the support of some larger group.