Labor Occupational Health Program at Berkeley celebrates 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, house cleaners, caregivers and day laborers. To oversee that effort, they turned to the Labor Occupational Health Program at UC Berkeley School of Public Health.

The program, known as LOHP, quickly got to work. Over the course of a year, staff led advisory committee meetings with employers, domestic workers, nonprofit advocates and health and safety experts. Together, they developed the nation’s first guidelines on best practices to prevent injuries and illness among domestic workers.

In 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that extended health and safety protections to a portion of these workers—the more than 175,000 people who are hired via agencies.

“We were very fortunate that LOHP was chosen to help develop policy guidance,” said Kimberly Alvarenga, the director of the California Domestic Workers Coalition. “Their knowledge about the industry and deep understanding of low-wage immigrant workers and the everyday issues they face is invaluable.”

The domestic workers who were part of that committee were not always comfortable speaking about their experience. But, Alvarenga said, they found working with LOHP empowering.

“I’ve heard from many of them about how that experience was life defining and has played a role in their own leadership as women,” she said.

Great work, but nothing unusual for LOHP. Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, the program remains devoted to its mission: promoting safe, healthy, and just workplaces and building the capacity of workers to improve their conditions. To do so, LOHP works with a wide range of partners, among them: unions, worker centers, community organizations, government agencies, employer groups, policy makers and academics.

Helping the most vulnerable workers

Over the years, LOHP has played a major role in reducing workplace harm from such diverse threats as ergonomic hazards, infectious disease, and violence—with a special focus on the most vulnerable workers, including teens and immigrants.

The program also closely tracks emerging hazards; infectious diseases such as COVID-19; and climate change-related disasters such as fires and floods.

“We provide resources and training so workers know they should be protected on the job,” said Suzanne Teran, who took over as director in January, after longtime leader Laura Stock stepped down. “Sometimes, after a disaster, domestic workers have been asked to clean up homes that have ash and soot. Day laborers are sent in to do cleaning or to use particular chemicals to do the cleaning without proper protection. It’s just not safe.”

LOHP trains workers so that they understand their rights, and know how to protect themselves, or refuse a dangerous assignment.

Bertha Servín, who works at a large industrial laundry in Chino, California, and is a shop steward with her union, Workers United, said her colleagues are often sick from the job.

“My coworkers have asthma, coughs,” Servín said. “No one is reporting anything. In LOHP’s class I learned that I have the right to an explanation from the company on what kind of chemicals they are using and how they are affecting the workers.”

According to Teran, one thing that hasn’t changed much over the past 50 years is that companies vary greatly in compliance with occupational safety and health laws and guidelines.

“There are employers who do have good health and safety programs and have the resources to do it,” she said. “And then on the other extreme, we have many who are flagrant violators and not in compliance with the law.”

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Teran noted, the public views worker health as community health.

“There is much greater awareness now about how exposures at work can influence what happens in the community,” she said.

LOHP’s new impact report, released in January, highlights the program’s accomplishments, both small and large-scale:

• With support from the California Department of Public Health, LOHP has trained workers and union staff across warehouse, industrial laundry, and transportation industries to understand their rights under California’s new Indoor Heat Standard.
• LOHP’s multilingual, low-literacy resources for unions and worker centers are now part of the California Workplace Outreach Project (CWOP)—including an English-Spanish pocket guide on protections from wildfire smoke.
• After California adopted a law requiring high schools to teach labor rights, LOHP developed resources and new curricula for youth on labor rights and history. The program also runs the Young Worker Leadership Academy for teens.
• LOHP partnered with the County of Santa Clara’s Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement, and local community organizations, to conduct a survey documenting issues facing retail food workers.
• LOHP also joined the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health investigating how increasing the speed of pork processing lines has impacted worker health and safety. LOHP staff visited plants to interview workers and observe conditions.

“LOHP started with a certain mission and it’s been able to stay true to that mission,” said Laura Stock, who is still involved with some of the program’s projects. “When it first began, it was funded specifically to train unions about the new Occupational Safety and Health law, but it has continued to identify and address cutting edge issues.”

LOHP has also functioned as a research center, and offers classes at Berkeley Public Health.

“Our involvement and engagement has been framed by our commitment to community-based participatory research. We also think about research-to-practice, so the results can actually be used by people who need help,” Stock said.

Education and real-world impact

At the same time that LOHP trains workers, employers, and worker organizations, it also offers courses at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, designed to develop the next generation of occupational safety and health leaders.

Nestor Andre Castillo earned his master’s degree from the school, and then worked as a lecturer at several colleges in the California State University system, before becoming one of LOHP’s coordinator of public programs. One of his recent projects was the wildfire protection pocket guide, which was translated into several languages; and he also was part of the team of researchers who visited plants to interview poultry and swine workers.

He enjoys the mix of academic and on-the-ground research at LOHP.

“We’re always doing work that is practical and offers something to workers,” Castillo said. “It’s tangible and real—the best of both worlds.”