Gabriel San Roman- Gabriel San Roman
For Unionizing Factory Workers in Santa Ana, Indoor Air Pollution is More Pressing than Pay
On a normal day, Kingspan Light and Air, a factory in Santa Ana’s industrial corridor, buzzes with workers welding, spray painting and manufacturing fiberglass to make energy efficient skylights for the Ireland-based corporation. An early morning shift in late August, though, promised to be anything but routine for Israel Maldonado and Micaias Pacheco.
That day, Maldonado, a lead assembly line worker, and Pacheco, a welder, became clandestine “citizen scientists,” outfitted with monitors to measure indoor air pollution for an independent study led by Dr. Shahir Masri, a UC Irvine scientist.
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