The Labor Occupational Health Program, or LOHP, is celebrating the 50 year anniversary of its founding. Housed at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, the LOHP develops educational and training programs around workers rights as well as occupational and environmental health. The program also conducts policy work and research in the field. LOHP Program…
In the News
UC Berkeley School of Public Health honors LOHP’s 50 years of advancing safe jobs, healthy lives, and worker justice
For many years, all of California’s domestic workers were excluded from the health and safety protections that covered employees in other industries. Workers and their advocates have long sought to fix that. In 2021, a new law called for the state to establish a committee to develop policy recommendations and voluntary guidelines to protect nannies,…
LOHP featured on PBS News Hour Weekend: Low wage, essential workers demand better protections in California
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/low-wage-essential-workers-demand-better-protections-in-california Low-wage, essential workers who can’t do their jobs from home are facing an unequal playing field as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue. In California, many of the state’s 556,000 fast-food workers have protested what they call a widespread lack of basic health and safety protections. Now, many are advocating for a new…
New Safe Cleaning Fact Sheet – English and Spanish
Safe Cleaning Fact Sheet – in English and Spanish A low-literacy fact sheet that describes how cleaning products affect workers’ health, what employers and workers can do to work safely with these products, and the importance of safer products. English, Spanish
Few Options, Many Risks: Low-Wage Asian and Latinx Workers in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Low-wage Asian and Latinx workers harbor significant health concerns related to COVID-19 but lack basic safety and wage protections and information while facing retaliation from employers and harassment from customers, according to a new report published by Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus in collaboration with the Labor Occupational Health Program (LOHP) at…
McDonald’s workers want more say over California labor conditions. This plan would help them
An Asian American Advancing Justice and UC Berkeley survey of low-wage workers found that 27% of restaurant employees, which include fast-food as well as sit-down establishments, polled received no information on COVID safety protections. https://www.sacbee.com/news/equity-lab/representation/article250790549.html
Low-wage Asian and Latinx workers struggled to get COVID-19 information and didn’t feel comfortable reporting symptoms, survey finds
Research from the advocacy group One Fair Wage found that harassment has become more severe for female tipped workers during the pandemic; according to the UC Berkeley/ALC report, about 49% of respondents who work in restaurants experienced negative interactions with people not following COVID-19 protocols. Two of those respondents said they or a coworker were physically…
Asian and Latinx low-income workers weren’t given masks, were fired for Covid-19 fears, report says
Asian Americans Advancing Justice — Asian Law Caucus, a national legal and civil rights organization, and the Labor Occupational Health Program at UC Berkeley, surveyed more than 600 workers throughout the state in the winter of 2020, and conducted at least eight in-depth interviews in spring 2021 in which subjects described their Covid-19 labor experiences.
