Thread: Vista day laborers wary of proposed law

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/06 ... _15_06.txt

Vista day laborers wary of proposed law

By: CRAIG TENBROECK and BRENDA DURAN - Staff Writers

VISTA ---- Several Latino day laborers, standing in loose-knit groups and glancing at passing cars as they waited for work Thursday morning in a parking lot in central Vista, said they had concerns about the city's recent effort to regulate the people who hire them.
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Many of the workers said the proposed law ---- which would require employers to register with the city, display a certificate in their car windows and present laborers with written terms of employment ---- would discourage street-side hiring.

Day laborer Felipe Rodriguez from Oaxaca, Mexico, said the ordinance might make sense if the workers were being hired for longer projects. But because most of the job offers are for a single day, he said, employers wouldn't go to the trouble of filling out the paperwork and would probably stop coming.

Only one worker, Isaias Bautista-Perez, said he supported the idea of employer registration because it would add legitimacy to his work and might discourage anti-illegal immigration activists from targeting the shopping center near the corner of South Santa Fe and Escondido avenues where he and other men gather each morning.

Speaking in Spanish, Bautista-Perez said the proposed law is probably meant to discourage street-side hiring, but he doesn't believe employers will stay away.

"They need us," he said.

The proposed law, tentatively approved Tuesday by the City Council, will return to the panel for a final vote June 27.

City Attorney Darold Pieper has said the intent of the ordinance is to protect day laborers from being cheated out of pay, abandoned at work sites or other forms of abuse. Critics have called it a thinly veiled attempt to shut down the high-profile hiring site near the busy intersection.

Pieper said Tuesday that he consulted several day labor studies while drafting the ordinance, but did not speak with the local day labor community.

While activists on both sides of the illegal immigration debate have butted heads over the proposal, workers have gone about their business, returning to the parking lot each morning and waiting for job offers.

City officials have repeatedly said they believe most of the men at the Vista site are U.S. citizens or legal residents, but none of the laborers who spoke with the North County Times on Thursday made that claim. When asked, several said they did not have residency papers. Some declined to give their full names.

In recent weeks, a group called the Vista Citizens Brigade has visited the site to protest illegal immigration and to discourage employers from hiring the day laborers. Laborers and workers-rights advocates have called their tactics harassment.

City officials have said the large number of workers congregating in the parking lot and the growing tension there is disruptive to the community. Some merchants have said the laborers can be intimidating to customers.

Lucas Hidalgo, 18, said Thursday that the registration law would decrease job offers to him and other day laborers because employers who pay under-the-table wages wouldn't want their names on record. Hidalgo said he hasn't had trouble with employers cheating him out of pay, but has heard of some who have.

One worker said about half the time he is paid less than agreed upon.

Several men said having a dedicated hiring site for Vista's day laborers would be a good idea. At the suggestion of Mayor Morris Vance, the City Council has said that it will research locations away from downtown for a hiring site and try to find a social service agency to run it.

Workers said the presence of anti-illegal immigration activists in recent weeks has already discouraged a lot of employers from coming by. Bautista-Perez said he was once able to get work at the site every day, but now he is lucky if he gets work one day a week.

This is the second time Bautista-Perez has come to the United States, he said. The first time, he put the money he made toward property in Oaxaca where his family lives. Now, his home is nearly done, he said, and he plans to return to Mexico soon and get a job there.

"I don't need to come back anymore and be discriminated against," he said.

Contact staff writer Craig TenBroeck at (760) 631-6621 or ctenbroeck@nctimes.com. Contact staff writer Brenda Duran at (760) 761-4408 or bduran@nctimes.com.

"I don't need to come back anymore and be discriminated against," he said.

We don't discriminate against hispanic citizens and legal residents, we discriminate against illegal aliens!