Day laborers have always existed, but different groups within the community are now persecuting them. As a result, many prejudices and stereotypes have been formed against the hard working community.
On May 7, 2001, we formed the first job center in New York in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn for about 75 day laborers. This center was very successful and the workers were able to find permanent jobs within the community with contractors and homeowners who were impressed with the services they provided.
Our organization continued to grow and began organizing day laborers in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. We targeted the corner of 18th Avenue, one of the largest and most chaotic areas where day laborers gathered to wait for work. On March 4, 2002, we opened the second job center, which was embraced by the community that had once victimized our members. The project focused on the quality of life for the entire community.
We have been in Bensonhurst for five years, and about 60 percent of the center’s workers have obtained permanent jobs, and twelve have formed their own contracting businesses.
This is the best way to confront the issues of existing prejudices - you have to provide an alternative solution to a problem to make it a success. The job center is not just a place to gather to wait for work; it is a place to hold planning meetings, set ground rules, define and enforce a living wage and create a fair system for allocating work.
The day laborers are responsible for publicizing the center, fundraising, cleaning and improving the physical surroundings. These men and women also receive English literacy classes, and workshops in leadership, occupational health and safety at the workplace, construction-related skill, small business development, personal wellness, labor and legal assistance.
On December 3, 2003, we formed the United Roosevelt Day Labor Committee. The workers on Roosevelt Avenue are still on the street, but they formed different committees to maintain order, discipline and overall protection against labor exploitations. One of our main goals is to open a job center for the workers on Roosevelt Avenue. We have heard many offers to assist us, but we have yet to see any action.
The city formed a commission to study the possibility of opening job centers using the organizational structure of The Bay Parkway Job Center and the Latin American Worker’s Project. The process, however, has been surprisingly and extremely slow. This upsets me because this long drawn out process is having a deep impact on the quality of life of the community.
There is a dire and urgent need for job centers to meet the needs of the growing day labor population. The establishment of centers is a means to cultivate positive relations between immigrants and their communities, prevent labor and civil rights abuses, improve working conditions, recover unpaid wages; monitor and enforce minimum wages, overtime, health, and safety, and other employment laws; actively develop leaders among workers to take action on their own behalf for both economic and political change.
A great concern of mine is that anti-immigrant groups are threatening and instilling a great amount of fear in the elected officials who are supposed to represent our best interests. I find it disturbing how many elected officials are influenced by the fear of the possibility of having these anti-immigrant groups run negative campaigns that may affect their re-elections.
One argument that we always hear and address is that day laborers take jobs away. However, they actually fill jobs that larger companies overlook. Members of the labor unions cater to large construction projects, and in spite of this, some of these labor unions are a major force in the resistance to open job centers.
Change and progress cannot occur without the support from the public, and this support must first come from elected officials. The greatest change will come as an effect of progressive and beneficial change in public policy. This cannot happen if our elected officials continue to be negligent in their priorities.
They must stop being influenced by anti-immigrant groups and face the fact that there is already a viable solution that has been neglected.
Oscar Paredes is the Executive Director of the Latin American Workers’ Project.
