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Day laborers get mixed signals
Cicero Home Depot bans solicitation

By Sara Olkon
Tribune staff reporter
Published September 28, 2006


A slight man inside a shiny black Range Rover peered out his window as he slowly exited the Home Depot parking lot in Cicero. Within minutes, 23 jornaleros were at his door, jostling for his favor.

"I need young, young," the driver said sharply to the day laborers. "It's right in Berwyn. As many hours as you want."

Then he offered $8 an hour. He wouldn't say what sort of work it would be.

Tension marked the exchange. A Cicero police officer ordered the contractor off the lot and chased the workers from the scene.

Such negotiations continued in fits and starts for most of the morning on Friday at the 2803 S. Cicero Ave. Home Depot store.

Not so long ago, things were much more serene. The day laborers--some illegal immigrants, others not--have been going there for years. They offer their services laying tile, installing carpeting or painting a room to homeowners buying supplies at the store.

Workers recall a time when they were allowed to wait by the store exit, and on cold days, they were allowed to stand just inside the store. Sometimes a manager came by with cups of hot coffee.

But in the summer of 2005 Home Depot officials were calling police to complain about the men soliciting work on their property. Over the next three months, Cicero police arrested 55 laborers on misdemeanor trespassing charges. Five more men were arrested on the same charge in January.

"It's a mystery why Home Depot started arresting folks," said B. Loewe, a spokesman for the Latino Union of Chicago, an advocacy group representing the day laborers.

Bad feelings and bad publicity followed. Although charges were eventually dropped, many workers say they remain fearful of another roundup.

Every morning, starting just past dawn, several dozen of them gather on the street dividers, lawns and fast-food parking lots that edge the Home Depot site. As a rule, they know they must keep off Home Depot property and vie for work from just outside its borders. A beefy private security guard patrols the sprawling asphalt by golf cart to make sure.

"It's like we are still on the border," said Carlos Gomez, a 38-year-old native of Puebla, Mexico.

Welcome or not, the current arrangement marks a detente of sorts between laborers and Home Depot executives.

The Atlanta-based home improvement empire--the nation's second-largest retailer--still maintains a no-solicitation policy, said Home Depot spokesman Yancey Casey. As such, the laborers are still no more welcome to look for work on company grounds than a Girl Scout would be to sell cookies, Casey said.

But a sticky situation for the national company has become even stickier given that outside many Home Depots, contractors and some customers count on the day workers to be there. In a few cities, officials actively encourage their presence.

In Burbank, Calif., city officials made Home Depot pay for a $94,000-a-year worker center that includes a bathroom and a water cooler. Homeowners or contractors can drive through the 2,500-square-foot facility to find workers, who must fill out a job application. Their immigration status is not checked.

Closer to home, the Latino Union of Chicago opened a nonprofit day-labor workers' center in Albany Park in 2004. The idea was to give homeowners and contractors a place to find workers who are vouched for. Wages are agreed upon in advance and depend on the skill level involved. Between jobs, laborers can use the center's computers to search for work instead of hustling for jobs on the streets.

Jaime Ojeda envies such a place. The 42-year-old father of three from Cortazar, Mexico, was standing on the lawn of a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise near the Home Depot in Cicero recently when the sprinkler system suddenly switched on and doused him.

Just a week earlier, he said he had been stiffed by a contractor who handed him a bad check for $110 after a full day of roofing work.

"There is so much pressure," Ojeda said as he watched a group of much younger workers chase after a job prospect.

Casey said Home Depot is not interested in owning or operating day labor centers.

"It's not a Home Depot issue," Casey said. "It's a very complex concern that requires the input and leadership of federal and local governments in cooperation with civic groups, law enforcement and local business groups."

Cicero town officials say they would prefer it if the store allowed the workers to stand in the sprawling lot, said town spokesman Dan Proft.

"We need to balance the private property rights with the rights of people who want to find employment," he said.

The town has cracked down on the roundups, Proft said. Now they require Home Depot employees to identify a worker and his transgression before police will make an arrest.

"We are not going to send our tactical vehicles over there to round up everyone and cart them off to jail," Proft said.

Casey said it was never Home Depot's policy to have workers arrested.

The arrests in Cicero have been the result of a "refusal of the day laborers to leave our property," he said.

Not so, says Victor Mesa, 40, who was among the five men arrested in January.

The father of four from Puebla, Mexico, said he was unaware of the policy before he was arrested for standing in the parking lot and spent three hours in jail.

"I didn't rob," he said. "I was looking for work."

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solkon@tribune.com