In November of 2007, The Queens Courier gathered several months of unique, investigative, in-depth journalism and photographs on the lives and times of a group of workers known as day laborers, or as we called them, the “Ghost Workers.”
Over five consecutive weeks, we shed light on the long days and longer nights of the jornaleros of 69th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside. We interviewed the immigrants who had taken perilous journeys from their homelands to reach our county.
We waited with them on the street corners and talked about the families they left at home to come here. How they scrimped and saved to send cash back to their loved ones.
We advocated that instead of waiting on the corner for work, these jornaleros must have a place where they can take refuge from the cold and find the tools for integration into society. They should have a job center, which should include English classes, assistance with citizenship applications and career advice. It would serve both the workers and the surrounding community – because these laborers would be able to find the resources to create better lives for themselves.
The City Council had endorsed the creation of job centers to regulate wage and safety conditions, but the blueprint remained in limbo, hung up in a “Temporary Committee.” Years passed and when we ran our series, the committee was 25 months into what was to have been a 9-month process.
Three-and-a-half years after its inception the 16-member “Temporary Commission on Day Laborer Job Centers” issued its report calling for a public/private partnerships to develop and run facilities and programs to assist immigrant workers in the area of workplace health and safety, English language education and job placements services – everything we had advocated for in our series and editorials.
Let us hope that this commission’s report is approved by the mayor and the City Council and funds are allocated from federal dollars flowing into the city.
This is an idea whose time is long overdue.
