Herndon’s Headache

The town may take another ill-advised swipe at day laborers.

Washington Post
Friday, August 22, 2008; Page A16

HERNDON OFFICIALS shouldn’t be surprised that day laborers are again crowding the town’s streets. When Herndon opened a center that connected employers with day laborers in 2005, the western Fairfax County town of 23,000 people — about a third of whom are Hispanic — found a sensible way to deal with an unregulated scramble for jobs that sed onto the town’s sidewalks. It also found itself at the focal point of a national debate about illegal immigration. Critics said the group that operated the center should check the immigration status of the laborers. Town officials shut the center last year. Now many of the officials who fought to close the center are scrambling for answers as they consider whether to take another ill-advised swipe at immigrants.

The reappearance of the laborers, who observers say number between 50 and 100, has irritated some citizens and officials. Most of the workers wait on Elden Street, where many of the town’s busiest retailers are located. But people have a constitutional right to seek jobs in public, so council member Dennis D. Husch has proposed a number of oblique approaches to make their lives difficult, such as attempting to remove pay phones and confiscating bicycles chained to trees and sign posts. He also suggests limiting alcohol s in the area where the laborers gather. Mayor Stephen J. DeBenedittis didn’t dismiss the suggestions but told us that he was hesitant to do anything to make the town less pedestrian and bicycle-friendly. Groups that support the laborers say that such rules are discriminatory and would probably be struck down in court.

Mr. Husch’s proposal is an unwitting admission that closing the center was a mistake. The center, which taught laborers English and provided them with small comforts such as coffee, kept workers from loitering. Before it opened, laborers jostled for work each morning outside a local 7-Eleven. It was a chaotic scene, and there were reports of public urination, fistfights and other misconduct. There haven’t been similar reports of misconduct since the center closed, but some residents say that the situation is worse now, because the laborers don’t confine themselves to the 7-Eleven.

The failure of the federal government to fix the immigration mess in Fairfax Countyand across the country has put a burden on local officials. But they still have options. They can embrace practical solutions, such as the laborer center. Or they can follow Herndon’s floundering example.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/21/AR2008082103105.html

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Big Boxes and Day Laborers

By The Editorial Board

NYTIMES
 

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday afternoon passed an ordinance requiring the biggest big-box home-improvement stores — Home Depot, and in other words — to deal with the problems caused when groups of day laborers gather outside to look for work.

The new law does not explicitly require the creation of day-laborer hiring sites — rudimentary, roped-off areas with shade, water, toilets and benches — but that is what the stores would most likely do to comply with the new rule. The ordinance makes the stores responsible for keeping their parking lots safe, clean and orderly for the mingling of contractors, pers and day laborers.

It’s smart for several reasons:

Basic crowd-and-vehicle control. It’s never a good idea to have dozens of men looking for work in vast, barren parking lots without trash cans or toilets. Ad-hoc hiring sites can be unsightly, chaotic, and dangerous. But setting up amenities for day laborers has been controversial, because immigration hard-liners bitterly resist simple measures that might help the people they want to lock up and deport. They would prefer to wish away the problem rather than deal with it, as Los Angeles has.

Justice and dignity for day laborers — and other low-wage workers, both immigrant and native-born. Day labor can be a brutally hard way to make a living. But rock-bottom pay, cruel working conditions and wage-and-hour abuses — the kinds of things that make Lou Dobbs weep for the native-born American worker — are discouraged when day laborers have safe, well-run places to look for work. The idea is to deny bottom-feeding employers the opportunity to exploit people off the books and out of sight, and that is exactly what hiring sites do.

There are strong practical reasons for giving day laborers basic shelter, but there is a powerful moral argument, too. Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, based in Los Angeles, puts it eloquently: “If you accept my labor, you must accept my humanity.”

Customers should not weep for Home Depot, a chain whose very business model — selling building supplies in bulk — encourages and benefits from day labor. The company has profited immensely in the globalized world and crosses borders with ease — far more easily than, say, the hard-working immigrant men so many of its customers rely on for help with drywall, painting, landscaping and other manual jobs.

Other communities with day-laborer problems should look at what Los Angeles has done, and follow its good example. It was a long battle, but worth it.

“It took four years to get a four-page ordinance,” said a relieved Bernard Parks, the city councilman who sponsored it, just before the successful vote.

http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/big-boxes-and-day-laborers/

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Council passes day-labor center ordinance

By Sid Garcia
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=6326157 

LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Wednesday’s vote ends four years of laboring over how to regulate day laborers at large home improvement stores.

The City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday that requires home-improvement stores such as The Home Depot, clinic Lowe’s, Osh and others more than 100,000 square feet in size to set aside space for day-laborer shelters. The shelters must include drinking water, bathrooms, tables, seating and garbage cans, and must be close to the store location.

The 15-member City Council voted for the ordinance unanimously Wednesday.

“It is not an ordinance that impacts or takes into account a person’s immigration status,” said L.A. City Councilman Bernard Parks. “It’s not an ordinance that mandates shelters. It merely gives communities the ability to have input in the conditional-use process.” 

 Supporters say labor centers at these stores will make it safer for the workers, and those seeking to hire them.

“The proposed ordinance requires only that there’s a plan upfront before a store opens,” said Pablo Alvarado, member of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “That is an essential first step to ensure that we have successful day laborer centers in our city.”

“As this economy gets worse, I will tell you, there will be more people who want to find day work, and I think that this is a good ordinance. I think it makes sense,” said City Councilwoman Janice Hahn.

The ordinance goes to Mayor Villaraigosa; once the ordinance is signed by the mayor, the ordinance becomes law and goes into effect in 30 days. It also requires store developers to look into the need for security.

This ordinance, according to Parks, will save the city around $2 million per year in litigation and solve other problems day laborers congregating at home-improvement stores cause.

City News Service contributed to this report.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=6326157 

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Day Laborer Ordinance Receives Approval

Published on CBS2.com

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The Los Angeles City Council has approved an ordinance that could be used to require home improvement stores to provide shelter, patient water and bathrooms for day laborers looking for work.

The ordinance, which passed unanimously, says that big box stores like Home Depot built in the future receive “conditional-use” permits, which would allow city officials to impose the restrictions.

Councilman Bernard Parks who first proposed the ordinance four years ago says it is the first move of many to try to improve conditions for such workers.

A group of day laborers in the council chambers cheered the decision.
Home Depot spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher expressed her company’s
disappointment, saying the issue is more “complicated than placing mandates on businesses.” 

http://cbs2.com/local/daylaborer.ordinance.2.794843.html

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L.A. adopts day laborer rules for home improvement stores

The law could require such firms as Home Depot and Lowe’s to build day-labor centers with shelter, drinking water, ed bathrooms and trash cans at new stores. Each site will be evaluated independently.

By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 14, 2008

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved an ordinance Wednesday requiring certain home improvement stores to develop plans for dealing with day laborers who congregate nearby in search of jobs.

The ordinance mandates that proposed big-box stores obtain conditional-use permits, which could then require them to build day-labor centers with shelter, drinking water, bathrooms and trash cans. 

Councilman Bernard C. Parks, who first proposed the ordinance four years ago, said that this was just the first phase and that he planned to address existing home improvement stores next. He said the businesses needed to be held accountable for their role in attracting dayworkers.

The vote prompted a standing ovation by dozens of day laborers in the council chambers. The move came after years of debate and negotiations among city leaders, Home Depot officials and dayworker advocates over who should be responsible for public safety and nuisance issues created by workers gathered in parking lots and on sidewalks and street corners.

“This is an important day,” said Councilman Eric Garcetti. “This is an example for the nation.”

Cities nationwide have taken different approaches to the issue. Some have tried to restrict where workers can gather, while others have built hiring halls.

Home Depot officials said they were disappointed by the L.A. council’s vote and said they shouldn’t be solely responsible for addressing the challenges presented by day laborers.

“This is a broader social issue that goes beyond Home Depot, and the solution is certainly more complicated than placing mandates on businesses,” said company spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher.

Nevertheless, senior manager Francisco Uribe pledged to work with city leaders to address the issue.

Dayworker advocates praised the vote, saying the action would make it easier to build worker centers at home improvement stores. There are currently eight centers in the city, each run by a nonprofit organization.

“We welcome it,” said Pablo Alvarado of the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “We need it. The workers deserve it.”

Under the ordinance, stores making major renovations or additions could also be required to go through the conditional-use permitting process. The city plans to evaluate each proposed store independently. The city would have to make certain findings, including that there is an existing day laborer population in the vicinity, before requiring a company such as Lowe’s or Home Depot to create “operating standards” to deal with dayworkers.

Stores would not have to make a plan if the city determined that there were not significant numbers of day laborers in the area or that they were not expected to generate increased trash or noise or impede traffic. The ordinance would apply only to stores of 100,000 square feet or more.

The issue is also part of the wider debate over illegal immigration.

Marvin Stewart, president of the Minuteman Project, said the ordinance was another example of how the city condones illegal immigration. “All of this is flying in the face of what the city is supposed to be doing in terms of upholding the law,” Stewart said.

But Abel Valenzuela, a UCLA professor who has conducted extensive research on day laborers and supports the ordinance, said the city can expect to see even more such workers as the economy continues to falter. “This isn’t an immigration issue,” he said. “This is a labor market issue.”

anna.gorman@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-homedepot14-2008aug14,0,4167886.story

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Ordinance Seeks To Encourage Laborer Shelters

By HOWARD FINE

Los Angeles Business Journal Staff

Major new home improvement stores opening in the city of Los Angeles may have to build shelters for day laborers under a City Council ordinance approved Wednesday.

Under the ordinance, proposed by Councilmembers Bernard Parks and Ed Reyes and passed unanimously, all proposed home improvement stores of more than 100,000 square feet would have to obtain a conditional use permit from the city. Most Home Depot, Lowe’s and other big box home improvement stores would meet this threshold.

In order to obtain the permit, the developers of the stores would have to present plans to address the issue of day laborers congregating on the property and waiting to be picked up for jobs. These plans could include building shelters for day laborers that include bathroom facilities, though the ordinance does not specifically mandate that such shelters be built.

Several councilmembers said they also wanted to see an ordinance addressing day laborer issues at existing home improvement stores. Parks and Reyes said that issue would be dealt with at a later date, after the current ordinance is implemented.

http://www.labusinessjournal.com/article.asp?aID=27795112.61837902.1668342.5797867.2556162.565&aID2=128325

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