Prior Conversations About LEP Claimants. The NJP complaint alleges that it had raised concerns with L&I in the past and made prior efforts to ensure that ISD provided meaningful access to LEP workers’ compensation claimants in accordance with Title VI. XXX explained that on September 12, 2002, its attorneys and other advocates for Spanish-speaking LEP farm worker claimants, pursuant to the North American Accord on Labor Cooperation Public Submission Mexico 9802, obtained an agreement with L&I to add a "language preference" check box on the top of the Report of Accident (ROA) form which initiates every workers' compensation claim. NJP alleged that L&I had also agreed to gather and keep a record of the language preference information for LEP claimants. Enclosed with the complaint were letters NJP had sent to L&I. These included a July 25, 2008 letter from NJP to L&I describing problems LEP claimants were having with L&I language assistance services and requesting a meeting to discuss L&I’s obligations under Title VI. This letter noted, in part, that “while Spanish is the most frequent language spoken by immigrants, failing to provide services beyond Spanish would leave a huge share of the non-English-speaking population without language assistance.” Also enclosed with the complaint was a 2010 letter from NJP to L&I requesting copies of its policies and procedures that addressed language assistance services for LEP workers’ compensation claimants. Copies of the documents NJP received from L&I in response to this 2010 request were included with the complaint. The During the on-site visit, we toured the L&I Field Offices in Tukwila and Seattle, spoke with staff, and observed staff providing customer service to LEP individuals. Following our November 2012 on-site visit, XXX received three additional complaints from NJP against L&I on behalf of , , and , which were added to this civil rights investigation.
