Thread: CA: Day laborers finding less work

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April 20, 2008


REGION: Day laborers finding less work

By EDWARD SIFUENTES - Staff Writer

NORTH COUNTY -- Most days, Victor Lopez Ramirez stands on a street corner in Escondido hoping to land a job. In recent weeks, successfully finding work has proven much more difficult as the economy continues to soften.

The 21-year-old native of Mexico was one of dozens of men who lined a stretch of Quince Street between Mission and Washington avenues on Tuesday. Their ranks have swelled in recent months, he said, as people are losing jobs in construction and in other sectors that used to offer steady employment.

"I've never seen so many," Ramirez said last week in reference to his fellow day laborers. "It's the economic crisis."

Advocates and day laborers say the meltdown in the housing market is primarily responsible for the scarcity of jobs. But it's not limited to the housing arena -- fewer homeowners, they say, are hiring laborers to perform tasks such as painting and lawn care, and fewer general contractors are looking for extra help these days.

No government agency tracks employment statistics for day laborers, but a local hiring center run by Interfaith Community Services in Escondido reported a slight dip in the number of people hired in March 2007 compared with the same month this year.

The hiring center, which matches day laborers with employers, reported that 125 people were hired in March of last year compared with 109 hires this March.

Tough times

Outside the hiring center, most of the men said getting a job on the Escondido street has always been difficult.

Job seekers begin arriving before dawn, and by sunrise often find themselves competing with more than 100 others for the few odd jobs available. They still get occasional work in construction and landscaping, they say, but no real steady employment.

Ramirez, who watched lines of expensive SUVs forming at the entrance of a nearby Starbucks coffee shop, said he has stood along Quince Street in search of work since age 12.

The street is just one of many improvised hiring sites around North County and around the country. Advocates for day laborers say these workers are among the poorest, the most vulnerable and the most stigmatized.

The presence of the men has generated controversy in recent months. City councils have adopted ordinances seeking to control where the workers line up. Vista adopted a law requiring employers to register with the city before hiring people off the street, and Escondido is contemplating its own day labor law.

Anti-illegal immigration activists routinely protest at the day labor sites, saying most of the men are illegal immigrants and should be deported.

None of that seems to faze the workers.

Dozens of day laborers on Tuesday occupied a parking lot in Vista at Escondido and South Santa Fe avenues, and at Melrose and Willowbrook drives in Oceanside.

In Escondido, Ramirez, who shares a two-bedroom apartment in the city with five other people to save money, said he used to get work two or three times a week.

Now, he counts himself lucky to be hired once a week. That means he has little money to spare after buying food, and none to send to his wife and 2-year-old daughter in Mexico.

Out of work

Many of the homeowners and contractors who once hired them tell the men these days that there is simply no work to be had, Ramirez said.

Francisco Gomez Garcia, a 52-year-old Guatemalan standing nearby, agrees.

"There's no money," Garcia said. "There's no work."

Claudia Smith, a long-time immigrant rights advocate, said the number of day laborers on local streets has been growing for more than a year.

Economists have said the slowdown in the construction and real estate markets is now bleeding into other sectors of the economy, particularly the retail sector.

The number of new building permits in the first three months of the year in San Diego County is the lowest on record, according to a report released last week by the Construction Industry Research Board, a permit tracking service based in Burbank.

Permits for new homes and condominiums fell 63.6 percent in the first quarter of 2008 with only 926 issued countrywide, according to the industry report.

Smith said the economic downturn means that it's no longer just illegal immigrants and unskilled workers turning up at day labor sites.

"The jobs are becoming fewer and farther in between," she said. "That's been going on for a while, but there are more and more skilled workers who were laid off from full-time jobs who resort to day labor work as a stopgap."

On Tuesday morning, Garcia said only one person had been hired on Quince Street.

While Garcia said he often stays until about 2 p.m. hoping to land work, some of the men who stood with him on Tuesday gave up and began leaving by 8:30 a.m.

Better than nothing

Despite the lack of work, Garcia said he doesn't plan to return to his native Guatemala any time soon. Conditions there are much worse, he said.

"What are we going to do?" he asked. "In my country, work pays very little and everything is more expensive."

Garcia and other workers said they used to get $10- and even $15-an-hour jobs. Now, they say, they're lucky to get the state minimum wage of $8 an hour.

Because there is so little work, Ramirez said some day laborers are willing to accept less than the legal minimum.

"You can't be picky here," he said. "You do whatever work you can get and the employers decide how much they are going to pay."

Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organization Network, said that's a feeling many day laborers share. The organization advocates and lobbies for day laborer rights.

Low pay and difficult working conditions are not new to day laborers, Alvarado said. But they have other problems to worry about these days, because they are at the center of the national immigration debate, he said.

Many of the policies adopted by federal, state and local governments have been designed to make living and working conditions harsher for illegal immigrants, he said. Those policies include punishing employers who hire illegal immigrants and barring those in the country illegally from receiving most public benefits, in the hopes that they might "self-deport," Alvarado said.

Despite the challenges, only a few say they plan to leave, Alvarado said.

"Even if you live in an apartment with three, five or eight people, and you may sleep on a carpet, that's still a step up from having to sleep on a dirt floor," he said.



www.nctimes.com

Less work? I guess they will resort to even more crime and theft in our once proud nation. It is a sure bet that our incompetent government will do nothing to protect the American citizen from these lowlife theives and degenerates. I don't see the non-American's returning to their country of origin willingly.

"I've never seen so many," Ramirez said last week in reference to his fellow day laborers. "It's the economic crisis."

Yea, I say the same thing everytime I drive by a Home Depot and am treated to thirty or so illegals standing in the planters, acting as if they own the place.

Well, then go home.

And they say we need more work visa's, guest worker programs...talk about as dumb as a box of rocks!!

Originally Posted by SOSADFORUS

And they say we need more work visa's, guest worker programs...talk about as dumb as a box of rocks!!

Great point SOS! The illegals themselves are saying there is no work, American Citizens are being laid off in record numbers, and yet our government wants to bring in more so called "workers."

Something does not seem right...

Originally Posted by NoBueno

Originally Posted by SOSADFORUS

And they say we need more work visa's, guest worker programs...talk about as dumb as a box of rocks!!

Great point SOS! The illegals themselves are saying there is no work, American Citizens are being laid off in record numbers, and yet our government wants to bring in more so called "workers."

Something does not seem right...

Ya its pathetic...as we speak I am sending this article to U.S. Senators and all MSM media....I like to point this kind of thing out them.

Despite the challenges, only a few say they plan to leave, Alvarado said.

"Even if you live in an apartment with three, five or eight people, and you may sleep on a carpet, that's still a step up from having to sleep on a dirt floor," he said.

Pretty soon no apartment, better take what you can and go home now, amigo!