Thread: SOB: Hard Times for Valley's Day Laborers

If anyone thinks the illegals are going home...it's only wishful thinking! They are here to stay!

Hard times for Valley's day laborers

By Tony Castro, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 04/13/2008 09:17:13 PM PDT


CANOGA PARK - It is well past noon on a recent weekday and Jaime Armando has finally concluded that, for the fourth day in a row, he likely won't find any work.

"A year ago, I was working four and five days a week, but this year it's been more like one day in five," says Armando, a 19-year-old Guatemalan immigrant who daily hangs out along Vanowen Street and Canoga Avenue with other day laborers looking for work.

"But that means that tomorrow ... tomorrow, I should get work."

Welcome to the life of day laborers in the San Fernando Valley, caught in the grip of an economic downturn that arguably takes the worst toll on those on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder.

Work for the estimated 4,000 day laborers in the San Fernando Valley has fallen off an estimated 50 percent since a year ago, according to Antonio Bernabe, day laborer organizer in the Valley for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).

"Day laborers have always made their living on the leftovers of the construction market," said Bernabe.

"But in this economy, with the construction market being down and homeowners trying to keep their homes and not spending much money (on renovations), there are now no leftovers for day laborers."

Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network, says the biggest factor affecting day laborers has been a decline of disposable income among


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homeowners - who traditionally have hired laborers for everything from landscaping to remodeling.
"But in these times of crisis, employers and homeowners in particular are more protective of that disposable income, so the number of jobs has declined in the day labor centers and corners," Alvarado said.

What has now dribbled to one-day-a-week work has left most day laborers in the Valley earning an estimated average of just $60 a week.

Some talk about becoming essentially homeless, moving into already crowded tiny apartments shared by as many as half a dozen or more men and their families.

"I look at my life here and my life in Mexico, and it's still better here," says a laborer who would only give his name as Fernando. "In Mexico, I would be sleeping on a dirt floor in a cold hut.

"Here, at least I'm sleeping on a carpeted floor of someone's apartment."

Almost all of the Valley's day laborers are immigrants, the majority from Mexico and others from Central America, who came to the area looking for a sliver of the American Dream for themselves and loved ones back in their homelands.

"Our loved ones are feeling how bad (work) is here," says Pedro Chin, who has a family of four he helps support in Guatemala.

"Last year, I was sending home $300 and $400 a month. Right now I'm lucky if I can send home $100."

In the San Fernando Valley and other parts of Los Angeles, the signs of the hard times are particularly visible in the late mornings and early afternoons at certain intersections where day laborers traditionally line up just after dawn to compete for the few jobs offered by contractors and homeowners looking for help.

"When you go to a day laborer corner, you can see the desperation on the workers," says Alvarado.

"Particularly at the end of the month, you'll see the really sad faces of people trying to figure out how they're going to pay the bills, and how they're going to help families back in their homeland."

And the lines of those sad faces grow longer every day.

"A year ago, when there was a lot of work, you'd see only a handful of workers still waiting for work around noon," says Gustavo Lopez, a Mexican immigrant waiting for work on a recent day at Roscoe and Balboa boulevards in Van Nuys.

"This year you'll find dozens."

The hiring corners have been a staple of Southern California's landscape for almost two decades, with complaints from residents and business owners leading to regulated sites with strict rules of behavior in some neighborhoods.

In the San Fernando Valley, there are a dozen or so official labor center sites, but the number of unofficial locations at intersections is three to four times that number, according to day labor officials.

But today even the regulated sites are taking a hit, not only from the economy but from laborers who - facing limited work - say they can negotiate better with potential employers at unregulated sites.

At the Labor Ready Inc. offices at a corner of the Home Depot in Woodland Hills, several dozen laborers hover outside every afternoon hoping for a half-day's work and quickly pouncing on prospective employers.

"I can make more money getting work out here than from in (the Labor Ready office)," says John David, who, being American-born, is qualified to seek work through the official work site.

"But with Labor Ready, I'll make $8 an hour. On my own out here, I can make $10, $12 an hour, maybe $15 at times. When you're only getting work one or two days a week, you want to make as much as you can each of those days."

But the jockeying for increasingly rare days of work has brought about new cutthroat competition among day laborers.

"We used to look out for one another," says David. "But no more. The other day I had a man hire me. In the moment it took for me to turn around and pick up my coat and lunch, someone else jumped into the truck and took the job."

Similar stories abound at most of the locations where day laborers gather - but despite the challenges few day laborers talk about leaving the United States and returning home.
"I think it's more likely that Mexicans and Central Americans (will) decide to stay in their country rather than migrate," says Alvarado, "and I think that's more likely than immigrants who are currently here going back to their home countries because again - if you get a day of work a week - that is $60 a day.

"Well, guess what? That's what you make a month back in Mexico or Central America."

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_8914637

This is the greatest time for all of us here in the fight on illegal immigration!! If we can make small changes and get rid of SO 40 then they will be so discouraged that they will have a greater reason to leave! The spirits are LOW and they know things are not gonna get better for a while. This is our opportunity to strike!! Makes things even worse for them while we have the chance!

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