January 5, 2009 – Page 2 of 2

Campbell day laborers relocate again with mixed results

NewsBy NDLON Staff January 5, 2009 Leave a comment

By Chris Vongarath

Campbell Reporter

Posted: 12/23/2008 04:15:20 PM PST

The push to drive day laborers out of Campbell has been met with mixed results, with the latest police efforts giving indication that the issue may never completely be resolved.

After police pushed workers from their post in front of Home Depot on East Hamilton Avenue, find day laborers made their way down the street to a Rotten Robbie gas station. Now the move has been to Burger King on the corner of Hamilton and South Winchester Boulevard.

The relocation hasn’t caused the same stir it has in the past, but Campbell police say it is still too early to tell if the issue has been resolved.

“We’re certainly seeing smaller numbers and not receiving complaints,” Capt. Dave Dehaan said, adding that only Burger King management has contacted Campbell police. “I’m a little surprised. There doesn’t seem to be the same negative impact there as it has elsewhere.”

Burger King is putting up “no trespassing and no soliciting signs,” Dehaan said, but aside from that there have been no other action from patrons, motorists or residents in the two months since the relocation.

“I think that we have remedied the problem, and we may need to support Burger King when they get their signs,” Dehaan said. “But the numbers have gotten fewer as [day laborers] were moving farther away.”

Dehaan downplayed other factors — such as the winter months — as playing a role in the decreased numbers

“Even when we had bad weather in previous years, that would discourage some, but as soon as the rain let up, they would be right back up again,” Dehaan said. “Those who have been hiring day laborers have realized that they can’t do that — there’s just been less hiring going on.”

Day laborers initially moved from their Home Depot location partly because of the store’s proximity to Highway 17. Campbell police were able to use a state vehicle code that states it is illegal to solicit or attempt to solicit employment from a driver of a vehicle while standing on a sidewalk within 500 feet of a freeway on-ramp or off-ramp to cite laborers soliciting work.

At Rotten Robbie, police efforts were driven by customer and resident complaints of the 100-odd day laborers who would gather around the property throughout the day. Tom Robinson, head of Robinson Oil, the company that owns and operates Rotten Robbie gas stations, said the issue is complaint-driven and police were only called upon when there was a nuisance.

With that not being the case at Burger King, Robinson said police may not have the same presence they had at Rotten Robbie.

“I tend to think that the city has an approach that seems to be reasonably effective and I expect they will use it as they need to,” he said, adding that the economic crisis may play a role in the decreased hiring activities.

Meanwhile, new Mayor Jane Kennedy sees the issue as far from over.

“It’s an issue no matter how we look at it, something we have to deal with,” Kennedy said. “We know they need to work and want to work, but there are other ways to work other than to stand on corners.”

Kennedy said she hoped the move to Burger King would not be a “final solution,” and sees the only way to put the issue to rest is to provide a center for day laborers to find work.

She added, “the city can’t afford it, and property owners can’t do it, so until we have someone willing to, what else are we going to do?”

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11297786

Day laborers tricked into handing over wallets, cell phones

NewsBy NDLON Staff January 5, 2009 Leave a comment

Bay City News Service

Three day laborers were picked up in Redwood City on Friday morning by two men who conned them into handing over their wallets and cell phones before dropping them off in Palo Alto, there police said today.

The two men picked up the workers in the area of Fifth and Waverly avenues in Redwood City around 9:20 a.m. Friday, police Agent Dan Ryan said.

“That’s where a bunch of day laborers gather every day, apparently,” Ryan said.

The two men told the laborers they had three separate jobs in Palo Alto, but that the homeowners at the job sites did not want cell phones on the job. They demanded the three workers’ cell phones and their wallets, saying they needed to borrow the workers’ identification to verify they could work.

After the workers handed over those items, the suspects said they needed to pick up tools and supplies.

The workers were left at three separate “job sites” to wait for the men, who never returned, according to Ryan. The suspects made off with the cell phones and about $400 in cash.

Ryan said the crime is considered a grand theft by con, an act he described as “despicable.”

“Often times these day workers are victimized,” Ryan said.

Ryan said there are some cases in which laborers work an entire day and then don’t get paid.

The suspects are described as Hispanic males in their mid-30s, both about 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds. Their vehicle is a bluish-gray, four-door sedan, Ryan said.

Anyone with information on the crime or the suspects should call the Police Department’s anonymous tip line at (650) 329-2190.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11179122?nclick_check=1

Day laborers find reprieve at soup kitchen

NewsBy NDLON Staff January 5, 2009 Leave a comment

BY THERESA JUVA
THE JOURNAL NEWS • DECEMBER 8, 2008

PORT CHESTER — Jose Antonio Correa folded his hands and bowed his head in prayer over a lunch tray.

Correa, site who is looking for carpentry work after losing his pizzeria job four months ago, s is grateful for the hamburger and soup he gets at the Don Bosco Community Center.

Peggy Lieb, a community organizer with the Westchester Hispanic Coalition, works at the day laborer site, negotiating wages between potential employers and workers. She said the growing number of men looking for construction work is pushing up demand at the soup kitchen.

With an economic recession in full swing, fewer potential employers have been looking for workers to paint walls, hammer together floors, or spruce up gardens in Greenwich, Rye or Mamaroneck.

“Today, we have 69 people who came and two employers,” she said. ” In the past it was 10 or 15.”

Bill Varccaro, a deacon at Holy Rosary and one of the kitchen’s organizers, said the kitchen is on pace to serve 42,000 meals by the end of the year – 9,000 more meals than last year. On Thanksgiving, the kitchen served 365 people; last year it served 225.

“We knew (with) the economy the way it is there would be less work available, so we planned for more groups to do food drives,” he said, noting that meal supplies come from local churches and the Food Bankfor Westchester. “We expect a further increase. I think we’ll hit our highest numbers in the next year.”

Selvin Maldonado, 35, gets a meal at the kitchen almost every day, now that he has been out of work for the past month. He arrives each morning at six, hoping to get picked for a construction job.

“I get coffee and wait for someone,” he said slowly in English. “This year is much more difficult.”

If he can’t get a job by the afternoon, he returns to his apartment on Madison Avenue and reads the Bible to pass the time. But he doesn’t dwell on his plight.

“It will make you go crazy if you think,” he said. “No sleeping. No eating.”

Ovidio Cifuentes, who last worked in Greenwich three weeks earlier, worried about not being able to send money home to his parents and girlfriend in Guatemala. He used to make $500 a week from painting and putting up gypsum wallboard. He eats at the soup kitchen to save the little money he has.

“This is a place we can eat and we don’t have the extra expense of ing food when we’re not working,” he said in Spanish.

Correa said not having a job stirs up the anxiety he felt when he decided to leave Honduras 10 years ago. That’s when Hurricane Mitch ripped through the country, causing flooding and mudslides that killed his neighbors and destroyed homes.

These days, he worries about losing his home because he can’t pay $300 for his December rent. To put a few dollars in his pocket, he collects cans and bottles and returns them to the supermarket.

Still, he is hopeful that his afternoons of eating at the soup kitchen will soon end.

A man recently called and said he might have work for Correa next month in a company cafeteria on Westchester Avenue.

“I have faith,” he said. “God will provide.”

http://www.lohud.com/article/2008812080327

This time, Lake Worth works

NewsBy NDLON Staff January 5, 2009 Leave a comment

By Dan Moffett

Palm Beach Post Columnist

Sunday, store December 07, here 2008

A strange cultural dance between snowbirds and day laborers goes on in downtown Lake Worth most weekday mornings.

Dozens of retirees, in pastels and white sneakers, arm themselves with cue sticks and take to the shuffleboard courts at the city’s recreation center. They play for an audience of Latin American immigrants, in blue jeans, flannel shirts and ball caps. They stare from the sidelines, wondering what the hell they’re looking at. Are there no soccer balls in Lake Worth?

A Martian who landed at the scene would be hard-pressed to identify the more alien faction. But anyone in the galaxy can figure out that something extraordinary is going on.

A month ago, city commissioners approved a plan to lease space in the building for $1 a year and open Palm Beach County’s third day-labor center. Jupiter pioneered the concept last year and Loxahatchee Groves has followed. The three very different communities faced the same problem: Immigrants on street corners soliciting day jobs from motorists, many of whom were delighted to oblige. Putting employers and employees together not only has reduced traffic hazards in Jupiter and Loxahatchee Groves but has deterred workplace abuses and promoted good behavior among all parties.

Lake Worth wrestled with the decision for more than two years. But the popularity of the new center was evident on a recent Tuesday morning. Close to 100 workers, most from Guatemala and Mexico, came looking for jobs. Lines were two- and three-deep at the eight computer terminals where English instruction programs were running. The makeshift lounge was filled with people hoping to hear their names called. They drank coffee donated by Starbucks, registered for classes, swapped stories and checked out the shuffleboard when all else failed.

“Of course, Jupiter has been our model, and I’d say things have gone better than we expected so far,” says Lisa Wilson, the center’s program director. “It has taken a huge collaborative effort to get this started.”

Ms. Wilson is guilty of understatement. Here is a partial list of collaborators: The Mentoring Center, Our Lutheran Savior Church, Cristo Es la Respuesta, Maya Ministry of the Diocese of Palm Beach, Coalition of Guatemala, the Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition, Palm Beach Community College, Buena Fe Center, Maya Quetal, Grupo Broadway, Lake Worth Global Justice, Organization of Mayan People in Exile, Adopt-A-Family, Interior Dimensions Group, Church of the Nazarene, Trinity Church International, Society of the Friends of the Quakers and the United Way.

Ms. Wilson says 22 employers have registered with the center, and 15 to 20 workers are getting hired each day. The average wage is $7.38 an hour. Only workers who live in Lake Worth can use the center, but employers have come from as far away as Delray Beach. Roughly 15”percent of workers placed have been native-born Americans.

“People miss that point a lot,” Ms. Wilson says. “One of the first persons we placed was an unemployed who has lived in Lake Worth her whole life. We found her a job as a caretaker for an elderly gentleman.”

Day labor centers have become necessary because of the federal government’s failure to come up with a comprehensive immigration reform plan that provides the economy the workforce it needs. President-elect Obama may be able to fix that. If not, there’ll be shuffleboard with Spanish play-by-play commentary in Lake Worth.

Dan Moffett is a former member of The Post Editorial Board. His e-mail address is moff1013@aol.com

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2008/12/07/a16a_moffettcol_1207.html

Daily Archives: January 5, 2009

Campbell day laborers relocate again with mixed results

Day laborers tricked into handing over wallets, cell phones

Day laborers find reprieve at soup kitchen

This time, Lake Worth works