Diary of a Day Laborer: A human drama in 5 parts

By Gustavo Arellano, Orange County Weekly.
Thursday, August 16, 2001 - 12:00 am


PROLOGUE

I once worked for a World War II vet who lost his leg in combat. Everyone always has these stereotypes that old white people are the most racist, but he was the best employer I ever had. He paid good, treated me and my friends with respect, bought us hamburgers for lunch, and even let us eat in his air-conditioned office so that we wouldn’t have to bake in the sun. He suffered a lot through life and, although I never lost a limb, I think he could relate to us. People who have suffered throughout life relate very easily.

—"Tio,"53


No matter what you’re doing, you run. It doesn’t matter if you’re 100 feet or just two feet away, you run. Your life depends on it. Your life depends on a random stranger who could kill you, will probably disrespect you, and most likely will pay you much less than you deserve. But even those prospects are better than the ones you used to have. This is the life of los jornaleros—the day laborers. Best known for standing around on street corners looking for work, their life actually consists of running, figuratively and literally. Running from a life of poverty toward the promise of America that comes in the form of the bluest blue-collar work. Running from the danger of la migra and toward employers who are absolute strangers with a car, some work and some cash.

Even if the bulk of the jornalero’s day is sedentary—i.e., hanging around a street corner, waiting for work—he must always be prepared to run. His day is constant anticipation. As I discovered over the course of three days as a day laborer, not running fast enough is the difference between a day of work and a day of painful waiting.


DAY 1: THE CHINESE MEXICAN

I worked for a couple of years at a factory, but they paid badly, and the conditions were horrible. You do the same thing over and over, get paid shit, and break your back for the same fucking wages regardless of how you do the job. Here, you can make much more than in a factory or in a restaurant. Yeah, it’s hard work, but I do something different every day. But I have to do it good. If not, I don’t work.

—Miguel, 31


I arrive around 11 a.m. outside a Home Depot in a shopping plaza on Brookhurst and Crescent. It’s one of Anaheim’s main gathering places for day laborers. Some of the few men remaining—maybe 20 altogether—have been waiting for work since 6 a.m.; by 10 a.m., most of the hiring is done; by 11 a.m., waiting for work is hoping against hope.

It’s obvious I do not belong here, no matter how hard I try to fit in. I have the right outfit: shoes caked with dust, the thinnest T-shirt I own, battered work pants, and a hat that will be my only protection against the unforgiving sun. But I wear glasses. My hands are smooth and show no sign of hard labor. And my skin, while somewhat dark, owes its tan to indoor lighting.

Which explains what happens next: as I approach the day laborers, they think I’m looking for workers, not for work. A man wearing a soccer jersey approaches.

"You need one worker?" he asks me in English.

"¿Mande?" I ask—What?

A perplexed look crosses his face. He wasn’t expecting Spanish.

"Are you looking for workers?" his friend asks me, this time in Spanish.

"No," I reply, again in Spanish. "I’m looking for work. You guys think I’m some pinche gabacho?"—a fucking white guy?

Everyone laughs. The tension is erased.

"Nah," he replies. "We thought you were Chinese."


"I knew that you were born here," one man tells me proudly after I reveal that I was born in the States and, yes, graduated from high school. "Ever since you first walked over here. You can tell if people were born here by the way they walk." People "from here" walk more stiffly—supposedly. The men I speak to—all in their mid-30s—are curious: Why would an American-born Mexican with a high school education have to stand on street corners to find work?

I don’t tell them I also graduated from college and am on my way to grad school. I act like they do. I don’t use English at all, instead employing the singsong Mexican Spanish of the rancho punctuated with graphic swear words to make my points.

I also ask questions that establish me as naive. An older gentleman, noting my inexperience, offers advice. His name is Julian. He’s a 47-year-old immigrant from Guerrero who has been working without papers for more than 20 years and is still looking to improve his life. "I’m going to computer classes to learn how to use a computer," he tells me proudly. "I recently bought a computer for my daughters who are in college to do their homework, but I also want to learn how to use it."

Julian shows me the finer points of getting a job in an environment in which work comes to those who run. He talks to me in an offhand manner, almost out of the side of his mouth, as he scans the street.

"You have to present a certain self-image," he says. "A lot of these guys"—he indicates the others talking in small clusters—"they want to work, but it doesn’t seem like it to prospective employers when they’re standing around talking to one another. You have to be on the lookout all the time for work. Every person that passes by, every car, is a prospective employer."

"But how do I know which people are actually looking for workers and which ones aren’t?" I ask.

Julian looks directly at me, as if he is about to impart ancient wisdom. "Sometimes, the people are shy, and you have to approach them," he replies. "Other times, they’ll be more direct. Regardless, when they come, you run toward them like a motherfucker."

I stick around until two in the afternoon. No one comes, and by then, I am one of the last jornaleros remaining. Men are returning from a full day of work, dirty but grinning. I notice that most pick up their transportation at the bicycle rack at the nearby Carl’s Jr. As I drive home in the Camry that I parked far away, I feel spoiled.


DAY 2: THE MANIC HISPANIC

People who hire us don’t care about legality or who has papers—and neither do the cops. All they want are people who can do the job at a much cheaper wage than a professional. They want to save the most money possible. That’s why the police or the companies around here don’t care. They’re in on it, too.

—anonymous, 18, Mexicali


A Silverado enters the parking lot and is immediately surrounded by about 15 men. Just as quickly, one man climbs into the truck and shakes hands with the driver, an older white man who apparently knows him. There’s nothing special about the worker, a guy with a scruffy beard and a hat that says, "Spice Girls." The men surrounding the truck begin yelling, "How many workers?" and, "What kind of work?" But the driver waves them off. "Sorry," he says. "I don’t need anyone else. Maybe tomorrow."

I arrive at 8 a.m. Around 40 men occupy what they refer to half-jokingly as their oficina—their office—a sidewalk across the street from Home Depot. By unwritten agreement between the jornaleros, the police and nearby businesses, the sidewalk is the only area where men can look for work in the shopping center. No wandering around the parking lot. No hanging around inside the stores. The sidewalk is about four feet wide and a parking lot in length. But all the men gather on the first 100 feet next to Brookhurst, where vehicles bound for Home Depot—and therefore the possibility of work—first enter.

The oficina operates like any office tower. For lunch, the men avail themselves of the Chinese restaurant or Carl’s Jr. or the father-daughter team that comes around 11 a.m. selling peanuts, pumpkin seeds and CDs. Someone has tied around trees plastic bags that serve as trash cans to make sure no one litters. Bathrooms are located inside the Carl’s Jr., which also serves as an air-conditioned haven—if you have the money—from the brutal heat that is just beginning.

Most of the men spend most of each day waiting. To pass the time, they chat among themselves or just stare intently at the street. Everyone tries to squeeze into the minimal shade cast by a large sign and a few scrawny trees. Even in the early morning, the sun burns us all.

The minute a car passes, everyone employs the same tactic: they rush to the edge of the sidewalk and lift their hands, trying to catch the driver’s attention. They shout out their specialty or just the word "Work!" The negotiation lasts two seconds as a car passes or stops to pick up someone. But mostly, the cars drive on. When they do, the jornaleros go back to waiting for the next prospective employer. Sometimes that could be hours away.


Friends who’ve worked in retail say humans—or at least consumers—are tied together like some multicelled organism, that we all show up in theaters and grocery stores or whatever en masse, leave together, and then return. Crowds flow. So does work. At 11:30 a.m., a line of cars pulls in looking for workers. I rush each car, but work goes to the swiftest. This is proved again and again. As soon as he picks a worker, the driver tries to leave, but all the men surround the vehicle, begging the driver for work. The drivers usually say courteously that they don’t need any more workers. But sometimes, they delight in bringing more misery to the life of the jornalero.

Case in point: a van stops in the middle of the street. The driver is a Latino—a conservative one, judging by the copy of National Review on the passenger seat. We swarm the van, but he angrily tells the laborers to go away.

"Is there a Manuel around?" he asks. "I’m looking for a Manuel." He speaks in English that is only slightly better than that spoken by the workers.

"He’s not here—hire us," one guy tells the driver.

"No, I want Manuel," the driver replies. "He does a good job."

A younger man forces his way through the crowd to the passenger-seat window and boldly proclaims he could do better than this Manuel, whoever he is.

"Oh, yeah? What can you do?" the driver asks him in Spanish.

"Anything," the boy confidently replies.

"Can you drywall?" the driver asks.

"Of course I can," the boy replies.

"What’s drywall, then?" the driver asks.

The boy begins to explain, "It’s when you put stucco inside the house . . ."

But the driver rudely cuts him off. "Sorry, you put stucco outside the house," he arrogantly replies.

Manuel finally emerges from the mass of men, gets in the van and leaves.

The young boy answered correctly—in Mexican Spanish, you do indeed call drywall "stucco." But the driver was listening for terms that only someone professionally trained would use, and most day laborers have probably never been professionally trained. Or perhaps he just delighted in tormenting someone.

I talk to the rejected worker, a 19-year-old whose name I never catch. The men here care more about what Mexican state you’re from, and I find out he is from the city of Toluca, just outside Mexico City. He has been here one week and has no relatives or friends in Orange County. The only thing the tolucense has done besides search for work is pay $175 per month upfront for the right to sleep on a woman’s couch.

Although he has just arrived, he already understands the rules of this workplace. "You have to be the first person to talk to the [employers] or you’re screwed," he says bitterly. "Every time a car comes, people circle it, and the driver cannot pick someone based on true talents or work ethic. He usually picks whoever came first. There’s no order, and we end up screwing one another because we surround cars." What’s worse, he says, is that he knows no one.

Day labor is pretty much like work anywhere in at least one respect, though: the more people you know, the better your chances.

"A lot of people that come looking for workers want someone who has already worked for them," the tolucense tells me. "And if that worker has a friend, the employer will pick the friend based on his word. If you don’t have a friend here, it’s nearly impossible to find work."

I have no blue-collar skills, nor do I have any friends here who can hook me up. This explains why I am unable to find work and probably explains his bad luck. He is I—although I am just pretending to do what he depends on for his survival. His backpack filled with various impressive-looking tools suggests he has real skills.

Watching him close up his bag and turn back to the street, I think, "If I were really in his situation, I would probably be homeless." That thought has not left my mind.


DAY 3: WHITE PEOPLE RULE

You have to be there constantly. I go there from eight in the morning and am usually the last person to leave. Some people start leaving at the lunch hour; I leave at 4 p.m. Maybe I didn’t get work today, but maybe somebody saw me standing there for a long time and they’ll remind themselves, "That person wants to work, and next time I see them, I’ll hire them just because they stood there for such a long time."

—unnamed immigrant, 29, Jalisco


"They sure know how to enjoy life," an older man says sarcastically as four Anglo men run around the block with their shirts off. Day laborers do not enjoy the luxuries of fashion, health-consciousness and other problems unique to middle-class life. Their lives depend on waiting, out-standing—literally standing longer than others—and running fast. According to a 1999 study by Dr. Abel Valenzuela of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Urban Poverty, about 20,000 day laborers operate in more than 90 sites in the Los Angeles/Orange County area. Almost all of them—98 percent—are from Mexico or Central America, and about 95 percent of these entered the country illegally; most of them remain without papers. Half the workers surveyed said employers had abused them at least once, usually in the form of nonpayment or insufficient payment. Fully half of them have been doing this for more than 10 years. The other half have been doing it for less than one year, suggesting that a large portion of workers—like the tolucense—are recent immigrants living lives as tenuous as his.

These men are workers, plain and simple. They might have personal lives, but their existence revolves around finding work, no matter how long it takes.

"You can never lose hope," says one gentleman, whose choice of a Mighty Ducks hat and a Kings T-shirt attests to his unconcern with sports rivalries. "I was once underneath the shade, the only person left, and was about to leave until I heard a honk. ‘You want to work?’ the guy asked me. Of course I did. I worked for five hours and received $60 for an easy job."

His story is interrupted. As he’s speaking, everyone starts pointing toward the street. I have let my guard down; a truck has arrived. I rush to find work. I can’t see the driver, but the men start shouting, "¡És un chino!"—he’s Chinese.

What difference this makes does not occur to me until a guy tells me afterward. "White people are the best [to work for] because all they ask is that you do the job right and they’ll pay you," he says. Chinese, the catchall phrase in Mexican Spanish for Asians, "are more demanding, and they pay cheap."

Prospective employers usually act nervous. They’ll slowly drive down the street, probably debating whether they should stick to their anti-immigrant rhetoric or hire cheap help. Then they’ll pull into the parking lot after making a couple of circles, still debating their hypocrisies.

But the chino manifests authority, as if he has done this many times before. "I give eight hours, $8," the man says in broken English. "Three workers. Construction."

A clamor breaks out among the men. "$10, two workers," one man shouts.

"No, eight," the Asian holds steadfastly. "Eight hours, I guarantee."

He picks a guy with a ponytail, who immediately asks the old man to hire his two friends. "Who are your friends?" the old man asks. Everyone shouts, "Me, me!" but the ponytail guy picks his friends and they get in the truck.

Those who remain try to shrug off their disappointment. "$8? That’s too little," one says. "I’m sure I can find someone who pays more later on."

Though the rejected men are devastated, the chosen are transformed. It’s an amazing and heartbreaking contrast. The chosen jornaleros’ faces are full of life, and they always start small talk with the person who selected them. Although the job will probably be backbreaking and they will no doubt be paid badly, anyone who remains on the sidewalk would kill to trade places.

There is no such thing as "unskilled workers" here. Everyone has a specialty—drywalling, construction and its myriad requirements, gardening. Some can do everything. But woe to the man without a skill. He is never picked.

I am never picked. As I leave the sidewalk for lunch around 1 p.m., the irony does not escape me: I am college-educated, young, and sound of mind and body. But in this world, any of these men has more to offer a prospective employer than I do.


EPILOGUE

I always try to help others out. Sometimes, a person will come with a job that I cannot do. But maybe I know someone there that can do it. I’ll yell out to the person that they have a job there. Sure, there’s competition for work here, but I’d rather make sure that others get a job I can’t do than leave that job unfilled and deny someone their day’s wages.

—"El Pansón" ["the Guy With the Huge Gut"], no age given, Michoacán


"So do you want to work or not?"

Leaving for lunch put me in a perfect position to get to a truck before anyone else. I immediately ask the lady driver what type of work she has. She is looking for people to pull weeds in her garden, something even I could do.

Here, at last, is an opportunity to work eight hours at $10 per—a king’s income here. I flash through the advantages of saying yes, but I refuse the job. It wasn’t the weeding; I’ve been pulling weeds all my life and know the basics of front-yard horticulture. But I can’t bring myself to take the job. I would be robbing these men of money they need to survive, especially one that pays this well. I walk away as others crowd around, a few of them winners in this rudest lottery.


Sure, it’s a hard job, but I suffer through it to show my children what type of life not to have. Lots of Americans, they’ve been here forever: their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so forth. They’re used to a life of luxury. If a little kid breaks his toy, he just waits until his parents come home so they can buy him a new one and throw the broken one away. We immigrants, on the other hand, come from a life of hardship. We appreciate the United States more than gabachos. All of us here, we just want to work.

—Enrique, 38

KKK members said they were at the protest to support the Minuteman Project but refused to comment further.
Minuteman Project National Rally spokesman Raymond Herrera said his group of about 40 members decided to leave shortly after the KKK showed up.

Herrera said Minuteman Project members did not invite the KKK and would no longer post the dates of protests on its Web site.

"We don't approve of standing anywhere near the KKK - they're not with us," said Herrera, a Mexican-American from Victorville. "We're a multi-ethnic group. We don't believe in racism, and when the Nazis show up we cancel the rallies immediately. We do not intermingle and we do not believe in their philosophy."

San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies and Upland police officers monitored the protest. No arrests were made.
The agencies did confirm reports were made that KKK members were in attendance.

But when Minuteman Project members left, the protest at the intersection didn't stop.

More than 100 day laborers and affiliates counter-protested in front of Arrow Grove Market. The noisy group focused their attention on the KKK and other remaining protesters, which numbered less than 20.

For about three hours, protesters from all sides of the immigration debate - and the intersection - chanted and shouted at each other as well as passing vehicles.

The intersection at Arrow and Grove divides Rancho Cucamonga and Upland and has been a traditional meeting spot for day laborers who congregate there looking for work.

Minuteman Project National Rally Coordinator Robin Hvidston said she planned Saturday's protest in order "to bring awareness to the fact that employers were taking advantage of foreign national workers."

Employers who hire illegal immigrants are breaking the law and the Minuteman Project wants city officials to see "what is going on on their sidewalks," Hvidston said.
In 2003, the Rancho Cucamonga City Council approved the nonprofit TOUCH Outreach Ministries to operate a day-labor center near the intersection. But when the property owner decided to develop the land, the center was forced to close last summer.

Day laborers still gather in the vicinity seeking employment.

"It's true that there are problems when workers meet on the corner," said Jose Calderon, a sociology and Chicano studies professor at Pitzer College and president of the Latino-Latina Roundtable of San Gabriel and Pomona Valley.

"It brings forward the need to collaborate with other nonprofits and work with the community to develop a day-labor center where people can gather safely."
Mike Nava, a former Pomona Day Labor Center executive director, said he visits the site daily in an effort to keep the day laborers organized.
"We're trying to get them another (day-labor) center," he said.

Debbie McClay, a teacher in Orange County, said she provides English lessons to day laborers on Saturdays near the site.
"I feel really strongly that a center is important and something that we need to protect the workers," McClay said.

Will Downing, a Pomona College student who teaches a weekly English class on a sidewalk near the intersection, said day laborers provide a service for employers.
"We're here to confront the Minutemen and defend the (day laborers') right to petition work on the public's sidewalk," Downing said.
Upland resident Debra Bedoy said she was exercising her right as a U.S. citizen to protest against illegal immigrants.

"These people sneak in the back door and they cut in front of the line," Bedoy said. "I've talked to legal immigrants and every one of them is angry."
Gregg Acker, a manger at Lee Wise Garage, an auto repair shop near the intersection, said more than 50 day laborers gather daily within a two-block radius of his shop, "swamping the parking lot and blocking the driveway."

"My problem ... is loitering," he said.

Across the street, Arrow Grove Market manager Salim Samouh said the protest on Saturday had negatively affected business.
"When they see 100 people outside, they're not going to stop by," Samouh said.
"I feel sorry for the whole situation. It's not either side's problem. It's the government." of the white-supremacist group.

 

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City, store to discuss day-laborer facility
By Nisha Gutierrez Staff Writer
Whittier Daily News

BALDWIN PARK - The city plans to meet with Home Depot within the next two weeks to discuss building a day labor center in its parking lot.

Some Baldwin Park officials said they want a center built to protect residents from being solicited while shopping and to make sure laborers can seek employment from a safe area.

Councilwoman Marlen Garcia said in December she brought the day laborer issue to the council's attention after residents, many of whom are female, complained about day laborers urinating, sitting on cars, drinking, gambling and making offensive remarks to customers in the Home Depot parking lot.

Last month, the City Council voted unanimously to introduce a no-soliciting ordinance, which if approved would ban solicitation in areas intended for vehicular use, landscaped parkways and areas developed for pedestrian travel.

On Tuesday, the council voted 3-2 to put their decision on hold and send the ordinance back to city staff.

Garcia said she was stunned councilmen David Olivas and Ricardo Pacheco changed their position on the ordinance.

"Supposedly we'd be violating day laborers rights if we pass the ordinance, but at the same time if we don't our residents will continue to feel unsafe and uncomfortable," Garcia said.

Annabelle Gonzalves, spokeswoman for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said if the city decides to approve the ordinance, the group would challenge it because the law would prevent people from exercising their First Amendment right to free speech and would violate the civil liberties of all residents.

The City Council is scheduled to meet with Home Depot on April 17 and expected to consider the ordinance again in May.

Ron DeFeo, spokesman for Home Depot, said the company does not operate or fund any day labor centers but does allow cities to use portions of its property for the facilities.

"While we prefer to maintain our policy of no soliciting at our stores, we have made the concessions on a few instances in order to serve the community but we do not operate them," DeFeo said.

Olivas said he hopes the city can build a day labor center and said he changed his position on the ordinance after realizing how broad it is.

"I thought the ordinance was too broad so much that it would include garage sales at private residences, it would affect people from the Salvation Army who stand in front of the stores and would keep people from having yard sales on their driveways," Olivas said.

nisha.gutierrez@sgvn.com

(626) 962-8811, Ext. 2109

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_5612017

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Minuteman group wants to shake racist image
By Sahra Susman, Staff Writer

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Article Launched:04/02/2007 11:12:07 PM PDT

Minuteman Project members are working on a policy that would provide identification cards to members in an effort to distance themselves from white supremacy and separatist groups.

Minuteman Project National Rally spokesman Raymond Herrera said his group does not associate with racist groups.

"Our policy as far as hate groups - be it the Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan or unruly Americans - is to not associate with them and distance ourselves from them. We are a multiethnic advocacy political group," Herrera said.

The group's move toward some kind of formal ID came in response to an incident Saturday at Arrow Highway and Grove Avenue in Rancho Cucamonga, where Minuteman members had planned to stage a rally against the use of illegal immigrant labor. Day laborers seeking work traditionally congregate at that intersection.

Robin Hvidston, Minuteman Project National Rally coordinator, said the rally was meant "to bring awareness to the fact that employers were taking advantage of foreign national workers."

Instead, the group was met by members of the White Legion Knights of the Ku Klux Klan from Yucaipa.

More than 100 day laborers and others also were there to counter the Minuteman rally.

The group of about 40 Minuteman Project members left shortly after the KKK appeared and have rescheduled their rally locally, though details have not been publicized.

Herrera, a Mexican-American from Victorville, said his group is taking steps to make sure groups like the KKK do not attend Minuteman Project rallies.

"We will never stand in the same street with hate groups - Nazis, KKK. If they show up, the rally is over. A similar situation won't happen again," Herrera said.

Herrera said ID cards will be used to ensure only Minuteman Project members attend rallies.

"Only our members will know about (them). We won't advertise or put it in the papers. We won't back down from the fight to save America because some hate group shows up."

Herrera said in order to be a member of the Minuteman Project, you have to be "qualified," which means you have to be "a moral American."

"You cannot be a bigot. We don't accept racists," he said.

Repeated calls to the KKK's national and regional headquarters were not returned.

Armando Navarro, professor of political science and ethnic studies at the UC Riverside, said the Minuteman's new policy is public-relations spin.

"I think what they're trying to do from a public relations perspective is ... trying to reconstruct their face as not racist," Navarro said.

Mike Nava, a community volunteer and former Pomona Day Labor Center executive director, said the fact Minuteman Project members are only seen protesting against Latinos makes their cause about race.

"They only attend protests that have to do with Mexican or Latino people ... you can immediately see that there is a significance of race there because you never see them protesting against any Jewish groups or Irish groups or veterans groups," Nava said.

"They always seem to be protesting against Latino and Mexican people."

Navarro said he believes the distance between the Minutemen and the KKK is not great.

"These people are ... more sophisticated, more middle class, not as violent," Navarro said. "But still (they're) directed at creating problems for the Mexican community."

Herrera maintained anyone is welcome to join his group.

"We're not an exclusive political group. We are mom and dad ... we're middle, moral America."

Staff writer Sahra Susman can be reached by e-mail at sahra.susman@dailybulletincom, or by phone at (909) 483-9356.



A man who identified himself as part of a Ku Klux Klan group from Yucaipa shouts at immigrant-rights supporters on Saturday in Rancho Cucamonga. The arrival of about 10 Klan members ended a protest against illegal immigration by Minuteman Project members who said they didn't want to be associated with the KKK. (Walter Richard Weis/Staff Photographer)

                                                                                     

 

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 More Info: Day laborer sites and bill

BY BART JONES
bart.jones@newsday.com

April 1, 2007

THE SITES

THERE ARE AN ESTIMATED 63 formal day laborer hiring sites in the United States, from California to Texas to New Jersey. Usually, they are in parking lots where contractors can pull in and out easily. Many have some kind of structure such as a trailer or a building that includes a bathroom, and are run by an on-site coordinator.

Hiring sites typically open for business between 6 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. and stay open until at least noon. Many distribute jobs using a lottery system in which workers' names are randomly pulled out of a basket or tumbler.

Some centers also match workers' skills with employers' needs. If the contractor needs a roofer, for instance, and the first worker on the list lacks that skill, they move on to the next until the appropriate person is found. Some centers keep records listing employers' names to help prevent exploitation of workers. Most centers set a pay level of at least minimum wage and seek to protect workers' rights by tracking contractors who hire them.

Many centers offer activities for workers, such as English lessons and computer workshops, while they wait for work.

Supporters contend the centers get many of the men off the streets and improve the quality of life for all residents. Opponents say the centers foster illegal activity because many of the workers are undocumented immigrants and work off the books.

THE BILL

THE LATEST BIPARTISAN EFFORT at comprehensive national immigration reform was introduced on March 22 by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) It combines border and domestic enforcement with expanded visas and green cards for immigrants. President George W. Bush supports immigration reform, which some observers believe gives the measure some chance of passing.

The bill would increase border security by boosting the number of border patrol agents to 11,600, for instance, and the number of entry inspectors to 2,500. It also would set up an employment-verification system requiring employers to verify their employees' eligibility to work in the United States.

A new worker program also would be set up granting three-year, one-time renewable visas to workers filling jobs for which no U.S. workers can be found. The family- and employment-based immigration systems would be overhauled to reduce long backlogs at the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services. High-skilled workers would be permitted to come to and remain in the country.

Undocumented immigrants who pay a fine and pass extensive background checks would be eligible for conditional status with work and travel authorization for six years. If during the six years the worker remained employed, stayed out of trouble, learned English and civics, paid taxes and left the country and re-entered legally, he or she would be eligible for an adjusted status.
Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

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Southampton to have day laborer hiring site

BY BART JONES
bart.jones@newsday.com

March 30, 2007, 9:34 PM EDT

The Village of Southampton will help establish the fourth formal hiring center for day laborers on Long Island, in a local spot where many workers gather waiting for employment, Mayor Mark Epley announced Friday.

Stepping into a controversy that has vexed numerous communities on the Island and across the nation, Epley said the village is in the process of creating the site on part of an empty lot next to the 7-Eleven store on North Sea Road and Aldrich Lane.

Friday, village workers planted trees around the outside of the site so motorists will not clearly see in. White spray paint marked the U-shaped path where gravel will be laid so contractors and homeowners can pull in to pick up workers.

Epley said the village plans to place benches and portable toilets on the site, but no trailer or building for now. The site should become operational within a week or so.

The village has become overwhelmed by as many as 150 day laborers who line streets including North Sea Road and Jobs Lane and sometimes even stand or lie down on people's front lawns, he said.

"I have them spread throughout my entire village now," Epley said. "I want to concentrate them in one spot."

His decision was met with praise and scorn. Sister Margaret Smyth, head of the Hispanic Apostolate for the North Fork who will help run the site, said, "It's an option. We have to do something because what exists is not working."

But Tom Wedell, a contractor from Southampton, called the project "ridiculous."

"I don't understand how they can put a hiring site for illegal immigrants when it's against the law to hire them." Wedell said.

Responding to the criticism, Epley said he was elected to resolve local problems.

"I'm not the IRS and I'm not the INS," he said, referring to the Internal Revenue Service and the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, whose functions now are carried out mostly by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security. "My responsibility is to my residents."

About 50 immigrants, clergy leaders and advocates held a vigil and march Friday through the streets of Southampton to voice support for immigrants -- and, indirectly, for the new hiring site.

Glen Cove, Freeport and Huntington Station already are home to formal hiring sites. Other communities, such as Farmingville, have grappled with the issue, with officials enacting a variety of measures such as crackdowns on contractors to try to drive the men off the streets.

Epley said he has spoken with groups on all sides of the debate -- from the local chapter of the Minuteman Project, who oppose illegal immigration, to Roman Catholic nuns -- and has concluded a hiring site was the only viable option.

The mayor just returned from a trip to Jupiter, Fla., which he paid for with his own funds, to visit a hiring site there he thought could serve as a model for Southampton.

The village is hoping to enact an anti-solicitation ordinance based on one adopted in Jupiter that would help prevent the men from waiting for work on public rights of way.

The mayor said he is seeking donations to help pay for the trees and the gravel at the site. Beyond that, he said, the village will spend little on the project.

Volunteers at the local Coalition for a Worklink Center, who have pushed for a hiring site, have approached the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to seek permission to establish a more permanent site, which could include a trailer or a building, in the parking lot of the Southampton Long Island Rail Road station. The MTA has not responded, group members said.
Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.

 

 

 

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Judge Backs Town
Anti-solicitation ordinance upheld.
By Scott J. Krischke
March 28, 2007

Members of Herndon's Town Council have remained firm in their plans to change operators of the town's day labor site following a ruling last week by a Fairfax County General District Court judge that upheld the town's ordinance forbidding informal employment solicitations.

The ruling was in response to the first challenge to Herndon's anti-solicitation ordinance, which was passed by the former Town Council along with the creation of the day labor site in late 2005, to manage what the town called a public safety issue regarding workers on the street and in private parking lots.

Defendant Stephen Thomas, who was arrested by the Herndon Police Department for violation of the ordinance on Elden Street on Sept. 16 was found guilty of the Class II misdemeanor and fined $100. Thomas was cited by Herndon Police after he asked a man at a 7-Eleven on the 1100 block of Elden Street for help doing yard work, according to court records. Several calls made to Thomas's attorneys at the Fairfax-based law firm Leffler & Hyland were not returned.

Thomas's attorney, Alexa Mosley, had argued that the ordinance was unconstitutional, as it impeded his right to free speech, guaranteed by the first amendment.

In her ruling, Judge Lorraine Nordlund stated that the ordinance met constitutional free speech requirements in that it was narrow enough as to not impede broader free speech, reflected needs for secondary public safety effects and that the speech was still legally regulated at the town's organized day labor site.

A similar ordinance passed in Redondo Beach, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb, was repealed last year after a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional.

"The very fact that [the day labor site] exists could be one of the strongest reasons for upholding this ordinance," Nordlund said at the conclusion of her ruling. "If it was not for the town's [day labor] center, I would have had to strike this ordinance."

THE RULING TO uphold the anti-solicitation ordinance is a confidence booster for Vice Mayor Dennis Husch, who said that his desire to change the town's current day labor site operator to one that would check for legal work authorization status is as strong as ever.

The town's current day labor operator, Reston-based non-profit Project Hope & Harmony, has refused to check for work authorization status as they have stated that it is not in their legal right to do.

Herndon's Town Council issued in January a request for proposals to operators who would check work authorization status. That went unanswered, with some companies citing a lack of perceived profit, according to town reports. They are working to refine the request to make it more attractive, Husch said.

The town's current day labor site has long been cited by attorneys as being the main reason that the ordinance has been upheld.

For Husch, so long as there is a site that provides a place for workers to go to solicit employment freely, regardless of whether or not it checks for work authorization status, the ordinance can be upheld.

"No one has said that we're going to get rid of the site, we just plan on finding an operator that will check work authorization status," Husch said. "We have no responsibility to serve illegal aliens and I feel confident that her ruling would remain the same," provided a new site was introduced and the current one closed.

Calls made to Mayor Steve DeBenedittis, who was present during the ruling, were not returned.

BUT THE RULING may not remain the same if the site is changed, as it would then prohibit the right to free speech of a certain group of people, according to attorney and former Mayor Mike O'Reilly, whose council passed the ordinance.

"I don't think that there's any question that if the regulated site is not open to everyone to exercise their free speech rights that this ordinance would be overturned," O'Reilly said. "Even if [workers] don't have documents they still have basic constitutional rights … and there cannot be laws passed that prohibit them."

Since the town cannot enforce federal immigration law, the question is about whether or not workers, regardless of their immigration status, are allowed to solicit employment on the street. As the current day labor site provides a regulated method for soliciting work for everyone, the ordinance can be upheld constitutionally, according to O'Reilly. The legal challenges to that ordinance gain more credence when that site is changed or closed to certain groups, he said.

"Like it or not, illegal aliens have [constitutional] rights … just on the virtue of their presence in this country," O'Reilly said. "Frankly this was a very close case … and I think that if that site didn't exist the way it does now, you would be looking at the very strong possibility of the ordinance being overturned."

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NEWS
August 10, 2005
Beyond the Stereotypes

Members of Herndon's day worker population want to be known for more than standing on a street corner.
By Brynn Grimley
Herndon Connection


Jose Hernandez wakes up every morning at 4:30 a.m. As the sun begins to rise, he begins his walk to the 7-Eleven at the corner of Alabama Drive and Elden Street, hoping to find work for the day.

If hired, Hernandez will work close to 10 hours of manual labor in a day, making $10 an hour. When his job at the construction site ends, Hernandez returns home to take a quick shower, grab a bite to eat, and hop on a bus to his part-time job in Reston Town Center where he cleans offices for $6.50 an hour until 10 p.m.

On days he does not find a day job at the 7-Eleven, Hernandez begins to feel the pressure of financial burdens — so does his family.
A native of El Salvador, Hernandez has four sons, twin 7-year-olds, a 9-year-old and 11-year-old, along with a wife, sister and mother in his home country. Each month he sends $600 or more home to them, $350 for his wife and children and $250 to his sister and mother who help watch the children.

"The big pressure's at the end of the month when you have to come up with rent," said the soft-spoken 30-year-old through translation by Jorge Rochac.

Hernandez, wearing workman boots, gray cargo pants, a black bandanna as a sweat band around his forehead and a navy t-shirt that lists "California's Beaches" across it, stands a little under six feet tall. He looks away as he talks about the life he left more than a year ago to come to the United States where he is trying to pay off his debts so he can return home.

"It's very hard to be away from one's family, especially your children and your wife," he said of the family he hasn't seen for 13 months and speaks to once a week via telephone.

"The United States are known as the 'Golden Jail.' If you're here you can't go back," he said. "You're gone three, six, nine months, sometimes your loved ones die and you never see them. Since I have been here I have lost two close relatives."

A majority of the men circled around Hernandez could relate as he told his story of leaving school after the sixth grade to become a trash collector in El Salvador.

Many of them tell their slightly differing tales of family back home and why they chose to come to the United States — most of them because relatives live here.

The common denominator for all of them is opportunity — something their home countries did not offer.

"What really is happening, what in a sense made us come here, is the insecurity and delinquency of our own country," said El Salvadorian native Jose-Luis Saravia, through a translator. "Here we don't have to deal with that."

Saravia has been in the United States for two years, but came to Herndon 10 months ago because his relatives live here. Initially living in Florida, his trip to Virginia took a detour.

Saravia said he was kidnapped for seven months by the person who offered to help him get to Herndon. He was held with seven other workers in the "boondocks somewhere" forced to do agricultural work for $40 a day. Threatened with abuse on a regular basis, one night Saravia said he escaped and "just ran away."

At 22 years old, Saravia is not the youngest man on site. Francisco, who declined an interview due to legal concerns, is 15 years old.
Kandi Perdomo, an English as a second language teacher at the Neighborhood Resource Center, said Francisco came to the United States by himself from El Salvador. Unable to attend school because he is supporting himself, Perdomo said Francisco stands at the 7-Eleven every day hoping for work.

Perdomo has met children younger than Francisco in the country alone. She also has heard repeated stories about men not paid for their labor.

"There's about $2,000 to $3,000 that I haven't been paid," said Saravia. "A lot of guys [employers] that don't pay say that if you don't have papers you don't have protection — that's not true, that's a perception."

Sometimes employers will try to take advantage of Latino day workers because they do not speak English fluently, resulting in them working all day for no pay, he said.

If hired every day, he will make $500-plus a week, said Saravia. He added that as of Wednesday, Aug. 3, he had not worked in three days.

"HERE IT IS AN ADVENTURE," said Hernandez. "Some days there is work, some days there is not work. And some days, like today, you just stand around and that's when people misperceive us and think we're just a bunch of bums standing on a corner doing nothing."
Hernandez said if he had the opportunity for a stable, full-time job, he would take it, even if it paid $7 an hour.

"When an American picks us up for work, we do our best," he said. "We want them to have a good concept of who we are and what we do."

Nery Vargas, 25, nicknamed "The Teacher" by the men on site, said there is a misconception in the community about the men that gather at the 7-Eleven.

"Those who are here, we're here because we really want to work, we want to contribute something," said the Honduran native. "We come here to work, not to cause problems. Our contribution is our work in exchange for pay."

Before moving to the United States, Vargas was studying mathematics at a university in Honduras. He left after one year to come to the United States as a "tourist" to see what the country had to offer. Since then he has worked as an electrician, placing his wages in a savings account, while also teaching himself English and helping others adjust to the new culture.

Vargas has also spoken on behalf of the day workers at recent Planning Commission public hearings regarding a proposal for the creation of a formal, regulated day labor site in town.

"Who will speak for us if I don't?" said Vargas, adding it is important residents understand the workers are as unhappy with the current situation at 7-Eleven as anybody else.

"When someone comes and they need someone like a mechanic or a painter, there's no way for them to pick and choose," said Vargas.

"The big problem is that there is no order. There is no way people coming into the site have people they can speak to and people on the site have no way to speak to the [employers]."

Saravia added there is also a misperception among residents that stereotypes them as bad people.

"For us, it would be a beautiful thing to take a photo of the drunks who come here and print it in the newspaper so we can get rid of them," said Saravia. "It would be good to get those people in the paper and prosecute them, so the general public opinion would change — it's not us."

Hernandez, Vargas and Saravia will continue to wait for work at the 7-Eleven because financially they have no other option.

Hernandez said he wants to take English classes, but cannot because of cost and scheduling conflicts. If the formal day-labor site is approved and offers English classes as proposed in the application, Hernandez said he would definitely attend.

Until then, he will continue to pay his debts from coming to the United States — a $6,800 trip that is gaining interest at 12 percent each month until he pays it off — and sending money home to his family. "I am living the American dream to get ahead and get rid of all my debts," he said.

"I am saving $30,000 and then I will go home to my country," Vargas added as a grin spread across his face under a black leather cowboy hat.

"I'll finish my studies and work as a math teacher," said Vargas about his plan to leave in a year-and-a-half. "But, for now, it's good to be here for work."

Even with a large debt hanging over his head, bills and rent to pay and a family to support each month, Hernandez smiles as he thinks about the future.

"My major goal someday — hopefully not too far away — is, I hope to go back home," he said. "I think that is the dream of most of us, to go back home."

[Jorge Rochac, a 16-year resident of Herndon, contributed to this story by helping translate for the men at the unofficial day-labor site

 

 

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August 15, 2005 Invisible to Most, Immigrant Women Line Up for Day Labor
By NINA BERNSTEIN
New York Times

The women are not noticed by the weekday morning crowds that rush past Eighth Avenue and 37th Street, in the heart of Manhattan's fashion district. They arrive in twos and threes after 8 a.m., shrinking against the buildings on both sides of the avenue, until scores of them are waiting, small, dark-haired Mexicans, Ecuadoreans, Hondurans.

By noon they have vanished. In swift, discreet sidewalk negotiations, perhaps half have been hired for a day's work at the minimum wage or less in some of the neighborhood's last struggling garment factories. The rest have given up until tomorrow.

A few miles away in Williamsburg, commuters on the busy Brooklyn-Queens Expressway are equally oblivious to the similar scene unfolding on an overpass above them. There, the work at stake is $8-an-hour housecleaning, and those vying for a day's scrubbing, mainly for Hasidic homemakers, stand in a crude ascending hierarchy of employer preference: Mexican and Central American women in their 30's at the back, Polish immigrant women in their 50's and 60's in the middle, and young Polish students with a command of English at the head of the line.

At a time when male day laborers have become the most public and contentious face of economic immigration to the United States, these two rare female shape-ups have doubled in size almost unobserved in recent years. Their growth reflects a larger overlooked reality: Women make up 44 percent of the nation's low-wage immigrant work force, and worldwide, studies show, more and more women are migrating for work.

Often invisible and undercounted, experts say, female economic migrants are an increasing presence, especially in big cities like New York, where the demand is not for men to pick lettuce or process poultry, but for women to pick up the scraps of a collapsed manufacturing sector, or to serve in the vast underground economy of domestic service.

Although more women across the country are showing up in day-labor hiring halls, often run by grass-roots labor groups, experts say that these two female shape-ups may well be the only significant ones of their kind in the nation - places where women are willing to put their personal safety in jeopardy for a few hours of work.

"What else is there to do if you have nothing to eat?" asked Rosario Jocha, 49, still standing on Eighth Avenue at 11 a.m. on a recent Wednesday. She said she had recently grabbed a day's work cutting threads from jackets even when the employer, a Chinese immigrant subcontractor, insisted he could not pay more than $5.75 an hour, 25 cents below the state minimum wage. "I've been here 11 years, and I still haven't found a stable, steady job."

At both locations, some of the women waiting for work had been in the country as little as a few months; others, like Ms. Jocha, a Queens resident from Ecuador, were old-timers who spoke of better jobs lost when small-business employers could not pay rising rent. On Eighth Avenue, merchants said that 100 to 150 women regularly sought work six mornings a week year round - double or triple the number when the intersection first emerged as an informal female hiring site about six years ago.

Yet May Chen, a vice president of Unite, the garment workers' union, whose headquarters is only a dozen blocks away, said she was unaware of the shape-up's existence until she was asked about it for this article. And Aaron Adams, a veteran garment center landlord who passes by every day, said he had assumed the women standing there "were just shooting the breeze."

Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, a sociologist who has written extensively about the feminization of migration, said she was not surprised. "The space that these women occupy, the public sp