Thursday, March 29, 2007
Last modified Wednesday, March 28, 2007 11:22 PM PDT

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Tensions persist over day laborer hiring site

By: CRAIG TENBROECK - Staff Writer

VISTA ---- Months after the city started regulating street-side hiring of day laborers at a central Vista shopping center, men who gather at the site say jobs have nearly dried up, even as opponents of illegal immigration are renewing their focus on the area.

The few dozen workers who gathered Wednesday morning at the center, near the corner of Escondido and South Santa Fe avenues, appeared to be about half the number that waited there for work on a typical day last spring.

Jose Ramirez, a 59-year-old laborer seeking a job, said Wednesday that employers occasionally offer short-term jobs, but it happens much less frequently.

"It's very hard," Ramirez said. "Most people here (have gone) one or two weeks without work."

However, the leader of an activist group opposed to illegal immigration who alleges that day laborers are mostly undocumented workers, says he believes hiring at the site is starting to rebound.

Last Saturday, the Vista Citizens Brigade staged a demonstration at the shopping center, the first it has held there in several months, said the group's organizer, Mike Spencer.

"It's growing again," Spencer said of the hiring in the parking lot. Spencer told the City Council at a March 13 meeting that he recently observed 50 or more day laborers at the site on a recent Saturday.

City officials have said they believe about 30 workers wait for jobs there each morning.

Since July, when the City Council approved the hiring law, Vista's code compliance officers have patrolled the shopping center daily. The ordinance requires those who hire day laborers off the street to register with the city, display certificates in their car windows and give workers written terms of employment.

The city has issued 94 registration certificates since the law took effect, including 20 this year, and cited 51 people for violations. No one has received more than one citation, according to city spokeswoman Jenny Peterson.

Ramirez said that rather than register with the city, some employers wait until code-compliance officers are gone before approaching workers. Others have stopped coming altogether, he said.

"All the people are afraid of the city," Ramirez said.

On Wednesday, Ramirez said he was offered a job moving furniture and hopped into an employer's car, but when a code-compliance officer appeared, the employer, who wasn't registered, rescinded the offer.

"I was going to work today," Ramirez said with a shake of his head. "But because of them, I won't."

City attorney Darold Pieper has regularly said the law was designed to protect laborers from abusive employers, not discourage hiring. But City Council members have said they wanted to reduce the size of daily gatherings at the high-profile site.

Mayor Morris Vance said Wednesday that the law has been successful in reducing the crowds.

"There's really no way that we have of totally controlling it," he said. "This has been our best effort not only to control it, but to really serve both sides."

He said the ordinance "doesn't satisfy the hard-liners on either side."

Two organizations ---- California Rural Legal Assistance Inc. and the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties ---- have called the hiring law unconstitutional and have jointly sued the city in federal court on behalf of two laborers.

A settlement conference is scheduled for May 21.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03 ... _28_07.txt
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