Thread: Day laborers out in the cold as slump bites

Day laborers out in the cold as slump bites
Mon Dec 8, 2008 5:11pm EST


By Tim Gaynor

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Mexican builder Juan Alcaraz stands in the chill early morning air at a day labor site in the Arizona capital and waits for a "patron" or employer to roll up and hire him. He's done a lot of that lately.

"At one time, I worked 10 days straight, now I'm lucky to get a single day," he said. "I've never seen it so tough."

Alcaraz is among thousands of day laborers, almost all of them illegal immigrants, who hire out to lay concrete, do home repairs and tidy yards across the United States and who are feeling the pinch as the fast-deepening recession takes hold.

Many "jornaleros," as they are known in Spanish, worked five or more days a week earning up to $1,400 a month during the good times, according to a University of California at Los Angeles study two years ago, most saving money to support families in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

But as U.S. construction stumbles, home foreclosures bite and credit dries up amid the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, workers in the casual labor pool from California to New York are facing hard times.

"It's only getting worse," said Gerson Hernandez, 40, a Salvadoran who has painted homes for 14 years in Los Angeles, as he waited with other migrant laborers outside a Home Depot store in the Glendale area of the city.

In New York, more than 100 men stood in the cold in the Jackson Heights section of Queens one morning last week, bundled in their hooded jackets with hands buried in their pockets, waiting for jobs that would never come.

"I worked two or three days in November," said Roberto Romero, 51, a Venezuelan worker acutely aware of the perils of life without a safety net.

"Sometimes you can have breakfast with that or maybe have a coffee. Then you look for work and try again tomorrow. It's bitter," he added.

WAGE THEFT ON THE RISE

Feelings run high about illegal immigration in the United States, where an estimated 12 million undocumented workers hide in plain sight.

After the U.S. government failed to pass legislation overhauling immigration laws last year, many U.S. states and some local authorities have acted to clamp down on illegal immigrants.

As the economy soured in recent months, day laborers complain they are facing increasing hostility as they look for work at work centers and strip mall parking lots from Los Angeles to New York.

At the Macehualli Work Center in Phoenix, jornaleros said anti-immigration activists frequently picket the site, telling workers to go back home, and urging potential employers not to hire them. In Queens, workers said they were made to feel distinctly unwelcome by neighbors who don't like the sight of idle strangers crowding their sidewalk.

"We are offensive to them, just because we come here to look for work," said Mexican laborer Vidal Benitez, 46.

For the dwindling number that do get picked up, tales of being cheated of their wages of $80 to $100 a day abound. In Queens, workers blamed unscrupulous Ecuadorean employers for wage theft, while in Phoenix last week it was an Anglo contractor.

"We did a good job, but he never paid," said Jorge Alberto Zarate, 48, a laborer from the dirt-poor Mexican state of Chiapas, who was hired with his cousin to install a patio hot tub, neither receiving the $450 they were promised for two days work.

"First he said it was because his mother was ill, but it was a lie.... He was taking advantage of us because we're migrants."

CUTTING BACK EVEN MORE

Many Americans are tightening their belts and spending less as the economy hemorrhages jobs. Last month, 533,000 were tossed out of work, the biggest number for any month since 1974.

Day laborers, who have no safety net as they work in the shadows across the United States, say they are also trimming their meager budgets gleaned from working as little as one or two days a week.

Some, like Hernandez, are sending less cash home to support their families, while others said they were cutting phone use, eating out less and are even doubling up in their rented rooms and apartments.

Mexican laborer Rodolfo Alva, who earned just $150 in the past week spent at a Phoenix day labor center, said he would have to chop spending at Christmas for his U.S. born wife and their five children.

"This will be the year without presents for the kids because there's no money -- (we have) just enough for rent and food."

The economic downturn is global. Many day laborers say they will try and ride it out in the United States, come what may, as prospects back home are likely to be bleak.

"We're all touched by the same crisis," Benitez said. Like many others, he had considered going home but rejected it.

"In any case, how are we going to return? With what money?"

(Additional reporting by Syantani Chatterjee in Los Angeles and Daniel Trotta in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... CU20081208

Just when are we going to start seeing some of these stories about American citizens...I guess they don't warrent the newspapers.

We are suppose to feel sorry for them but do you hear any sympathy from them for Americans who can not get a job in their own country.

And yes they are getting bitter when they see you taking their jobs!

Your seeing less and less of them here on long island now due to the economy and cold weather which they hate, i hope it drops to 10 below and stays that way till spring

I would never dream of hiring anyone off of the street or out of a parking lot. I want to know they are American citizens, and have a license before they get near my house. And if a contractor sends workers that barely speak English, I usually throw them off of the property and fire the company.

Feelings run high about illegal immigration in the United States, where an estimated 12 million undocumented workers hide in plain sight.

That funny. I thought the government said they were "hiding in the shadows".

After the U.S. government failed to pass legislation overhauling immigration laws last year, many U.S. states and some local authorities have acted to clamp down on illegal immigrants.

Its about time! Keep up the raids and use E-Verify!

"We are offensive to them, just because we come here to look for work," said Mexican laborer Vidal Benitez, 46.

I wouldnt say "offensive". I would say we are outraged and angry at the sight of illegal aliens everywhere we go because they are here illegally and taking jobs that should go to Americans.
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Mexican laborer Rodolfo Alva, who earned just $150 in the past week spent at a Phoenix day labor center, said he would have to chop spending at Christmas for his U.S. born wife and their five children.

"This will be the year without presents for the kids because there's no money -- (we have) just enough for rent and food."

Costs of living would be cheaper in Mexico, right? Your kids could probably work, too.

Many are just waiting for any jobs arising from the b.s. illegal alien stimulus package. Obama has told them he will stop all raids, enforcement actions and will not support e-verify. As I have said on countless occasions these various stimuli are for illegal aliens and will include health care. welfare, education, food stamps, cash assistance, low income energy (heating), housing and other assistance just for our occupiers. Illegal aliens are involved in post Katrina and Ike cleanup and reconstruction efforts and nothing is being done to stop this crap, so why would anyone think Obama would ensure 2.5 million proposed jobs go to U.S. citizens? Funny how there is no mention from any Mexican government, corporate owned bean head masquerading as a representative of the American people that jobs will go only to unemployed and struggling Americans.
The horse manure continues it's unabated flow from Washington forcing American taxpayers to scoop up the resultant mess (if illegal aliens aren't hired first). Once again the institution representing the rear end of a horse called congress does not give a horse's ass about the American people but only illegal aliens for cheap, illegal labor for their own devices (are you listening MS "Vineyards" Pelosi, Mr "Casinos" Reid, Mrs "Hotels, Motels and Restaurants" Feinstein), their corporate masters and illegal alien votes to maintain their seats at the table of power.

Same spin different bar stool, just another lazy writer dreaming up a sob story. No wonder the newspapers are going broke.No mention of the "builders" peeing in public, leering and remarking at women. Drinking and trashing or bothering shoppers and blocking egress to folks who are
obeying the law.

With over a half-million Americans losing their jobs last month alone, this Reuters reporter actually expects us to feel sorry for these illegal laborers? What planet are these reporters/editors living on?? I swear at times it feels like we're living in a parallel universe.

Today's news was encouraging--bankruptcy for one newspaper and a mortgage taken out on the NY Times building to keep going.

American's are waking up to the lies of the MSM and some of those weasels will be looking for new career paths over the next few months. A fair and balanced thing would be if the papers started hiring illegal immigrants to cut salary expense.