Thursday, June 4, 1998 | 9:36 a.m.
English, Spanish, Urdu or whatever, let's first make sure workers in risk situations can read and understand safety manuals and upgrades. All these workers came from a small town in Guanajuato, a Mexican state with one of the highest rates of adult illiteracy.
Could they even read a Spanish language manual? What about the estimated 11 percent of functionally illiterate American unskilled workers?
Cheap labor, regardless of ethnic or linguistic background, is notoriously illiterate in today's labor market. Until Nevada's Industrial Relations Division insists upon written tests to assure comprehension of safety procedures, as is done in most other states, we can await the next big boom.
Lois Gross
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