The Role and Training of Hispanic Field Workers in Chicago Area Tree Care

Stage I

Stage I of the project consisted of a fully scripted three-minute telephone interview developed by the author. Personnel managers at randomly selected companies were interviewed regarding the number of Hispanic workers they employed, the type of training utilized, and the rate of worker retention from year to year. The goal was to establish if Hispanic workers were present in sufficient numbers to warrant further investigation.

Stage II

Stage 11 of the project consisted of onsite interviews with workers, where the Spanish Skills Placement Test (SSPT), the Culture Free Self-esteem Inventory (CFSEI) and a Personal History Questionnaire (PHQ) were administered. The SSPT was developed, and is used extensively, by literacy and English as a Second Language (ESL) groups in Northeastern Illinois (6). The instrument consists of 7 progressively more difficult Competency Forms. The test measured basic skills including reading, writing, and math skills in Spanish among the workers. Since completion of the 6th grade (U.S. system) is considered pre-General Equivalency Degree (GED) by ESL standards (6), the SSPT covers only skills that would normally be acquired through this grade.

The CFSEI is a nationally recognized selfesteem instrument of established reliability and validity (4), composed of several forms adapted to different age groups. This study of Hispanic workers required a combination of the 40-item Form AD for adults covering sub-categories of Social, General, and Personal Self-Esteem, as well as a measure of defensiveness in response (the Lie Score); and an additional 10 items on Academic Self-Esteem from Form A, which measured the self-esteem developed during workers’ school years. A description of the subtest categories, as found in the CFSEI Examiner’s Manual (4), is listed in Table 1.

The 75 item, multiple choice PHQ was developed by the author and gathered information on the subject’s background including personal history, industry experiences, and exposure to a variety of social, cultural, and economic stimuli that are commonly cited in sociological literature. This instrument was field tested for clarity, readability, and range of response with workers at several companies before it was finalized.

Stage I: telephone interviews

The original database (811 files) was collected from 1992 Illinois telephone directories on a compact disk. The files gathered resulted from a sort by county, and type of business within the green industry business (landscape, nursery, and tree care). Each file was comprised of a company name, address, and phone number. Files were downloaded, then uniformly formatted for ease of use and analysis. Repeat and partial files were removed from the database leaving 609 active files. Approximately one third (202) of these files were chosen randomly. Advance letters were sent out describing the study and its goals, assuring confidentiality, encouraging participation, and describing when a follow-up telephone call would be placed. Telephone contact was made with the sample and scripted interviews conducted with personnel managers. Further erroneous files were eliminated during this stage, leaving a remaining sample of 133 files. The refusal rate was 30%, leaving 93 companies that were interviewed by telephone. See Table 2 for a summary. These 93 companies constituted the initial accepting sample, as well as the pool from which later on-site interviewees would be drawn.

Stage II: on-site interviews

Stage II consisted of, in-depth interviews with managers and workers at the company site. By operating in a familiar setting, it was hoped that stress could be minimized, thus reducing the disruptive effects of a new environment on participants. Of the 93 companies surveyed in the initial accepting sample, 68 reported employing Hispanics, 7 were removed because they declined to participate in Stage II of the project. Another 7 companies were removed because they indicated three or fewer Hispanic workers. These companies were represented in the telephone survey, however, because of the large study area, time constraints and limited resources of the pilot study, costs associated with on-site visits to very small companies could not be justified. All of the remaining 54 companies were contacted and questioned about their willingness to participate in the three hour long process. Of these, a 15 company sample-of-convenience constituted the secondary accepting sample. The secondary sample was comprised of volunteering companies, an unfortunate but unavailable threat to validity. On each site, one or two crews of workers were selected by managers to be interviewed. See Table 3 for a summary.

While on site, managers and Hispanic workers were interviewed separately. Managers (n = 14) were interviewed in English. One manager was unavailable for the interview when we arrived. Workers (n = 65) were interviewed separately in Spanish by a native Spanish speaking, male researcher of Mexican decent. The CFSEI and the PHQ instruments were administered verbally by the interviewer to the participating workers at each site. The SSPT was self-administered by each worker. The SSPT was, however, read, as per contingency specifications, to those workers who either volunteered that they were illiterate, or were identified by others as being so.

Testing arrangements varied greatly in response to the convenience of managers, and the facilities found at each site. Facilities included offices, equipment garages, homes, company lunchrooms, and in one case, leaning up against a pickup truck. Appointments for interviews were also at the discretion of managers. Although the researchers preferred morning interviews while workers were well rested, appointments with workers were often scheduled by manager after work, when subjects may have been somewhat fatigued. As a result of the nature of the study, it was impossible to insure equal treatment of all subjects; a possible, but unavoidable, threat to the validity of the implications drawn from the data.

The Hispanic presence

Of the managers agreeing to be telephone interviewed during Stage I (n = 93), 68 (73.1%) reported employing Hispanic workers. Most managers were highly suspicious of our intentions, possibly due to a fear of government action against undocumented workers. The survey did not gather information on the immigration status of workers. Of those companies reporting Hispanics employees, 47 (69.1%) said that their work forces were composed of between 60% and-100% Hispanics.

Work force stability

The telephone survey suggested that the Hispanic worker population in the Chicago area is relatively stable. Of the companies having Hispanic workers, 56 (82.4%) reported that between 60% and 100% of their workers returned each year. On-site interviews with workers (n = 65) confirmed this tendency to stay in the industry and to return to the same employer each year. Workers reported a mean of 6.1 years working in the industry and a mean of 4.2 years with their current employer. The mean number of round trips made between the U.S. and the country of origin was 5.

Worker training

Nine (64.3%) of the managers surveyed during the on-site interviewing belonged to between one and four professional organizations, many of which offer training/certification materials to their members (in English). Yet, the telephone interview with companies employing Hispanic workers found that 42 companies (61.8%) used no training materials at all. On site interviews with workers reinforced this response, with 33 (50.8%) saying that they had not received any training and 21 (32.3%) saying that they had learned theirskills through observing otherworkers in the field. This lack of training is likely due to the shortage of professionally developed training methods for Hispanics in the industry.

Wages and workweek

Almost 30 percent of the on site workers interviewed reported that they typically worked between 46 and 55 hours a week in the green industry. Exhaustive schedules in a laborious industry may help explain why workers seldom participate in English literacy or industry activities or programs after work.

For their work efforts, 20 (30.8%) of the workers, reported that they earned wages between $4.26 and $6.00 per hour. Another 32 (49.2%) reported wages between $6.00 and $8.00. Relatively low wages may partly explain why many workers shared living arrangements with friends (27.7%), or extended family (33.8%).

Isolation

Another explanation forthis tendency to live in large groups is that it may help combat feelings of isolation and aid in success at finding employment. While 43 (66.2%) of the workers reported having American friends, 20 (46.5%) of them said that they never/almost never socialize with their American friends away from work. This characteristic denotes a certain alienation from the larger society, which may explain the workers’ fearfulness in dealing with English speaking people and governmental agencies.

Alienation within the Hispanic community, however, was rare. Forty-nine of the workers (75.4%) said that they lived in the same neighborhood as their coworkers. Most (70.8%) carpooled to work together each day. Only two workers (3.1%) reported that they had no one with whom to discuss their personal problems while in the U.S.. Wives/ girlfriends (26.2%) and extended family members (47.7%) were reported as providing this emotional support. Workers also reported thatfriends (43.1 %) and family (41.5%) had helped them to obtain their present job.

Education

Background information provided by Hispanic workers during on-site interviews showed that 63 (96.9%) were natives of Mexico. Of the 32 states of Mexico, 46 workers (70.8%) originated from small, agricultural towns in the three adjacent western-central states of Guanajuato (38.5%), Jalisco (23.1%) and Michoacan (9.2%). Eight (12.3%) also originated from agricultural areas of the far southern state of Oaxaca. Small, rural towns in Mexico rarely have schools past the mandatory 6th-grade level. Further schooling frequently requires that students be bused great distances, to the nearest large city. This is costly for agricultural families that need the help at home (17). It is not surprising then, that most of the individuals participating in the study reported only a few years of primary schooling.

The mean number of years of schooling reported by workers during on-site interviewing was 6.4 (SD 3.5). This information was further verified by the results of the language portion of the Spanish Skills Placement Test (SSPT). The largest single group of workers, totaling 24 (36.9%), tested out at the 6th grade level (US system). It should be noted, however, that 38 (58.5%) of the workers, tested out at the 4th grade or lower. The scores from the math portion of the SSPT were even lower, perhaps due to a deterioration of skills since last they were in school. Scores on the SSPT revealed that 45 (69.2%) of the workers were functioning at the 3rd grade or lower math level. The findings of the SSPT demonstrate the need for educational materials targeting Mexican field workers to be simplified in both format and language/math use.

Self-esteem

Given that the immigrant experience is such a difficult one (5,22), the self-esteem of the workers was measured among the on-site participants using the Culture-Free Self-Esteem Inventories (CFSEI). Poor self-esteem has been correlated with anxiety, depression, and low academic achievement (4). The presence of any of these emotions would likely negatively affect the trainability of workers. Battle (4) relates an individual’s self-esteem to their ability to perform worthwhile work. He further suggests that training programs are one means to help achieve higher self-esteem among workers.

The mean Total Self-Esteem score was of 20.9 (SD 5.40). Based on Total Scores, 28 (43.1%) of the workers could be categorized as having low to very low Total Self-Esteem. Subtests further categorized 6 (9.2%) of the workers as having low/ very low General Self-Esteem; 8 (12.3%) of the workers as having low/very low Social Self-Esteem; 15 (23.1%) of the workers as having low/ very low Academic Self-Esteem; and 19 (29.2%) of the workers as having low/very low Personal Self-Esteem. The scores for all areas were approximately normally distributed. See Table 4 for a summary.

Table 4 also reveals that respondents had a mean raw Lie Score of 3.8. The fact that workers scored so low on the Lie Score indicates a measure of defensiveness in their answers to the Lie item statements, and possibly to other statements, in other subtest categories of the CFSEI. Because of the questionable veracity of their responses, it is difficult to say if self esteem poses a greater obstacle to Mexican immigrant workers in the U.S. than to any other group in the general population. However, due to the critical relationship between self-esteem and learning (4), this is an area that should be explored in other research efforts on this topic.