I agree that it was rude to speak in Spanish and leave you out of the conversation. There probably isn’t much you can do about that except learn some Spanish. That’s what I did and my coworkers don’t know how little or much I understand when they talk.

In my experience, companies preach certain policies to cover themselves legally but in practice they don’t follow through. You have to be vigilant for yourself. The company doesn’t care at all about you and the policies are only in place to protect themselves. Sarahsweets is right though, they don’t want a worker’s comp case either so that manager is placing herself at risk by ignoring a safety risk.

My advice is to politely speak up and ask for help and never lift anything heavy by yourself. Don’t put yourself at risk just to avoid a potential conflict with someone who doesn’t want to do their job. I have been in these kinds of situations many times and I know how hard it is. At first you feel like a jerk or an idiot for rocking the boat... but that’s not the case at all. Nobody is looking out for you if you aren’t looking out for you. ❤️