August 29, 2005

"Day Laborers, Cities Seek a Way That Will Work"

The L.A. Times reports in "Day Laborers, Cities Seek a Way That Will Work":

...Cities throughout California and around the nation are struggling to cope with the sheer numbers of day laborers, or jornaleros. Critics say the sites not only encourage people to come to the U.S. illegally, but also create traffic jams and are eyesores. Supporters say the workers are simply trying to make an honest living and are crucial to local economies...

...Cities have made bold moves, then sometimes suspended or reversed them. Redondo Beach barred day laborers from seeking work on its streets; a judge then blocked the move. Costa Mesa opened a center to match workers with employers, then decided to close it. Burbank required Home Depot to build its own hiring hall, then put the opening on hold...

"Local government doesn't exist to drive that kind of policy," said Glendale Police Capt. Mark Distaso. "This is something that needs to be dealt with on a federal level."

...Day laborers began gathering in California in the 1960s after the end of the bracero guest-worker program, said UCLA professor Abel Valenzuela, who has conducted numerous studies on workers. Their numbers have multiplied in recent years, with the expansion of part-time work and the influx of immigrants. He estimated that there are as many as 35,000 people seeking work at hundreds of sites in California.

The majority of day laborers are undocumented immigrants from Mexico or Central America...

..."We are not the solution, nor are we the problem," said [Home Depot] real estate director Jeff Nichols.

The company has posted signs to discourage workers at some stores — and provided supplies to help cities build hiring halls near others...

...The laborers, meanwhile, are fighting back — holding rallies, marches and national organizing conferences to push for centers and against restrictive ordinances. They also are seeking to improve working conditions, advocating for higher wages and filing claims against employers who don't pay...

One solution is to make it unprofitable to hire day laborers. With their drive to organize they might do it themselves by pricing themselves out of the market.

Another way would be to conduct stings against contractors. For the reasons given below, that's probably not going to happen.

The DHS could also conduct raids at day laborer hiring halls. Since UCLA says that most are illegal aliens, that should be all they need. Of course, given what happened in Temecula and Bush's general plan to say he supports border enforcement but do nothing about interior enforcement, it stands little chance of happening.

Posted to Los_Angeles at August 29, 2005 02:22 PM

Comments

The streetside day laborers are a very obvious case of bringing down the quality of population. Almost all of them are illiterate, or how is it that they can't fill out an application? Increasing the percentage of illiterates in our country can't be good for us. It has to be bad for the economy to have to adjust to the presence of increasing percentages of illiterates in employment; moving productivity backwards is not good.

Posted by: John S Bolton at August 29, 2005 03:28 PM

A bunch of guys trying to make a living.

Posted by: Ralph at August 30, 2005 07:55 AM