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Day laborers' tough choice: rights or job

By Oscar Avila
Tribune staff reporter

December 28, 2005

Since the Albany Park Workers' Center opened a year ago, soliciting help from the often chaotic day labor market has become as basic as ordering from a fast-food menu.

Contractors approach a counter and request, say, a roofer. A man with a clipboard consults the skills of the workers on his roster. He makes the introductions, helps them cut a deal and writes up a contract.

The labor market is quite different a few blocks away, where day laborers linger along Pulaski Road and wait for cars to slow. When a contractor emerges, the workers swarm the vehicle and beg to be chosen.

The laborers on the streets face many obstacles--the bitter cold, police crackdowns on loitering and unscrupulous contractors. Still, more workers are choosing the corners over the center at 4174 N. Elston Ave., even though the latter offers warmth, English classes and safeguards against fraud.

The seemingly illogical disparity can be explained with simple economics, according to organizers and the workers themselves. Contractors prefer to hire workers on the corners--and immigrants, in general--because they are likely to accept less pay. And laborers say they go where the work is.

As the center marks its first anniversary this month, organizers worry the freelance laborers could undermine their efforts out of desperation to get hired at all costs. The complaints mirror those of many U.S.-born workers who grumble that immigrant workers drive down wages because of their willingness to take lower pay and forgo labor protections.

"That's why we are trying to bring people here so there is no competition ... among ourselves," said Patricio Ordonez, a day laborer recently elected as a coordinator of the workers' center. "Hopefully, the workers can see the importance of unity."

Still, Ordonez said he doesn't criticize his fellow day laborers who prefer the corners.

"We don't know the needs of everyone," he said. "Maybe they haven't worked in a week. If someone offers them a scrap, maybe it is better to take $50 than not have a cent."

The day labor industry has gained prominence in Chicago as the immigrant population grows, particularly those working illegally who find it difficult to secure conventional jobs. The real estate boom also has stimulated demand for cheap workers who can complete construction and remodeling projects.

Many workers get placed through temporary agencies, but hundreds more seek work on street corners throughout the city. Most are Latino, but others are African-American or immigrants from Poland, Ukraine and other nations.

Albany Park became a focal point several years ago after residents complained about day laborers congregating in their neighborhood. Ald. Margaret Laurino (39th) worked with the Latino Union, a labor advocacy group, to provide workers a secure place to solicit jobs.

After those plans fell through, the Latino Union solicited grants and private donations to open the workers' center, hoping it would become a model for day labor organizing.

Workers oversee the center's operations themselves through an executive committee and direct member voting. To solicit work there, workers must commit to distributing fliers once a week to publicize the facility. If they don't meet that obligation, workers are left off the employment rosters for one day.

Volunteers and workers also created a wage theft task force that tracks down employers accused of not abiding by their contracts. The task force has no legal weight, but organizers say they have been successful in recovering wages through letters and telephone calls.

The workers also take English classes and receive training on how to work more safely. On one wall, a poster shows a ladder correctly propped against the side of a house. Workers even host a radio show on WLUW-FM to promote labor rights.

Eric Rodriguez of the Latino Union said about 25 workers show up at the center every day. Rodriguez said the center appeals to contractors looking for more reliable help and to homeowners who are intimidated by the prospect of soliciting workers on street corners.

The workers learn to assert their rights and are encouraged not to take jobs that pay less than $10 an hour, which is still less than the salaries earned by union workers.

Rodriguez acknowledges that many contractors are turned off by the oversight the center provides. "The contractors are surprised to hear it," he said. "Usually, they prefer day laborers because they perceive them as workers without any rights."

That reality has become clear to Arturo Nieto, 39, who grows frustrated that the workers on the street corners are taking $7 an hour for jobs. Nieto, a Mexican immigrant, worked on street corners for years before joining the center last year.

"Once workers start accepting that, the problem is that contractors get used to paying people less than what the work is really worth," Nieto said.

On Pulaski, meanwhile, workers grumble that the Latino Union abandoned them to focus on the center.

They say the center's rules are too strict and managers play favorites.

Vicente Guerrero, 30, said he would welcome greater job protections but prefers the flexibility to cut his own deals. Most day laborers would consider the center if organizers had done a better job reaching out to contractors, he said.

Guerrero, however, admits to sharing the frustration that some of his fellow laborers allow employers to exploit them. Just the other day, he said, a group of day laborers agreed to help someone move for $60 a day, a fraction of what moving companies would charge.

Still, Guerrero said he resents organizers coming to Pulaski to urge them to switch to the center.

"When you have these bills, when the rent is due, you have to do what is necessary," he said.

And while workers at the center speak optimistically of new training opportunities, of developing their skills, the day laborers on Pulaski seem resigned to a grueling existence.

Antonio Melias, 30, said bitterly that employers will always hold the upper hand as long as workers are desperate and doing what they need to get by. "Please," he pleaded as haggard workers milled nearby. "Tell people that we need work. Tell them that we want to survive."

The corner's cut-rate prices seemed to be fairly popular on a recent Friday morning. In an hour, contractors picked about five workers--approximately the same number that landed work at the Elston center during an 8-hour span.