Many day laborers still gathering on street despite city's hiring site



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Story Published: Jul 27, 2008 at 12:35 AM PDT

Story Updated: Jul 27, 2008 at 12:35 AM PDT
By Susan Harding and KATU Web Staff
Video

PORTLAND, Ore. – More than a month after the city opened its day labor site, some workers say they’d rather continue using a street corner to find work.

The city spent $200,000 to get the labor site open on the corner of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Everett Street and spent more than a year planning it. Yet its goal to get workers off the sidewalks and into jobs is running into some stiff competition on the street.

On Saturday, employers trickled in to the day labor site – but not enough for all those seeking work.

But on a corner up the street, more than a dozen workers waited for jobs, and a dozen others waited for work on a sidewalk on Southeast 6th.

They might make less than the $10 an hour minimum required at the city’s hiring site, but they don’t have to mess around with the center’s lottery system, which has drawn many complaints. Workers must wait for staff to pull their ticket in order to get a job rather than just running to a car for a quick hire.

One worker who only gave her first name, Maria, said she preferred the street corner because it was faster to find a job.

"We don't have to give out no information, no names, no address, nothin'," she said. "They just come, pick up some people and take us off to work."

The coordinators of the city’s hiring site want to change that mindset but say it will take time. Workers have been showing up to those two popular street corners for 14 years while the city’s day laborer site is new, they say.

"We're getting work," said Francisco Aguirre, one of three paid staff members with the nonprofit the city contracted to run the site. "We need more employers, yes, that's true, but this place is working!"


http://www.katu.com/news/25948844.html