Boom in day laborers reflects changes in the City
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Subject: Boom in day laborers reflects changes in the City
Boom in day laborers reflects changes in the City
By Emily Gurnon
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF Saturday, August 14, 1999
Fidel hangs his green backpack on a parking meter outside the Kelly-Moore
Paint store at Mission and Cesar Chavez streets. The 28-year-old Honduran
arrives every morning at 7, stopping first at Paisano's Cafe for a quick
cup of coffee.
This piece of sidewalk is his office - the place where he makes contacts,
discusses assignments and chats with co-workers.
But Fidel doesn't know whether he will actually get paid today.
And his family back in Honduras - a wife and three children, ages 8, 4 and
3 - is depending on him. "Every day, they need more and more money," he
said in Spanish.
Fidel is one of an estimated 1,200 men and women, most undocumented
immigrants, who stand on corners or knock on doors looking for day labor in
San Francisco.
Once confined to a few corners, this mushrooming population has spread in
the last several years along eight blocks of Cesar Chavez, over to
neighboring 26th Street and to other locations, mostly in the Mission
District.
The explosion in the ranks of day laborers reflects changes that have swept
San Francisco in just the last decade: a thriving economy, construction
boom, neighborhood gentrification and new waves of immigrants from Latin
America.
The population has gained lifeblood with each upheaval to the south: wars
in Central America, economic turbulence and, most recently, Hurricane
Mitch, which ravaged Honduras and Nicaragua last October.
Much of the day-labor world is visible to passersby - too visible,
according to some residents and merchants in the area, who say the workers
litter, urinate, harass women and create traffic hazards.
But some of it is less visible. Day laborers have become so much a part of
the San Francisco economy that large corporations use them for mailings,
moving, and setting up tables at conferences. Contractors hire them for
painting and construction. Homeowners use them for gardening and hauling
trash.
Recently, an advertising company hired dozens of day laborers to produce a
TV commercial for an expensive foreign car. The men moved 200,000 pounds of
rocks from one location to another.
"We have become a service that the city and county of San Francisco needs,"
said German Martinez, former executive director of The City's Day Laborer
Program, which pairs employers and workers at its office on 17th and
Hampshire streets. "If we didn't have day laborers around, a lot of small
businesses and homeowners and other business people would have a hard time
meeting their needs, their deadlines . . . their budgets."
If day laborers are hired on a a casual, intermittent or sporadic basis,
the law does not require employers to verify a person's work eligibility.
Stan Smith of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council
said local unions had some conflicts with the Day Laborer Program
initially, when program staff distributed leaflets promoting their nonunion
workers at union job sites.
Though Smith believes the day laborers might undercut unions by offering to
work for lower wages, Smith added that union members generally are more
skilled than the immigrants and do not feel particularly threatened by them.
Groups of day laborers first appeared on San Francisco sidewalks in the
mid-1980s, when mostly Mexican workers driven from their homeland by
poverty began gathering at Tiffany and Duncan streets, near the former
location of a Kelly-Moore Paint store in the Mission.
Even though they might look like nothing more than groups of downtrodden
young men, the clusters of workers have developed a complex social network.
The street corners become their primary meeting places, where they make
friends, get tips about jobs and connect with potential employers.
The workers come to America because they find something here they can't
find at home.
"There's a boom right now in San Francisco," Martinez said. "There's a lot
of work for a lot of people."
Several of the men carry beepers and date books. The very successful earn
enough to buy their own trucks - even their own Bay Area homes. One man, a
native of Guanajuato, Mexico, said he planned to live here one or two
years, save $10,000, then move back to Mexico and open a store that sells
dairy products.
But the day labor jobs, which generally pay $6 to $8 an hour, though
sometimes as high as $10 - the pay is sometimes negotiable - are not always
easy to get.
Fidel - who, like most men interviewed for this story would only give his
first name and would not say whether he was here legally - waits at Mission
and Cesar Chavez for his next painting job. The misty fog isn't cooperating.
"It's difficult right now because of the weather," he says. "They think
it's going to rain so they don't paint."
This corner is ground zero for San Francisco day laborers who hope to get a
few hours' work from some of the many painting contractors who frequent the
store. The location is known for commanding the best-paying jobs; the
farther east one travels on Cesar Chavez, the lower the skill level and
wages, observers say.
Fidel says he won't take anything less than $10 an hour. During one recent
week, he worked only one day.
His family subsists in a 12-by-15-foot house with no running water in a
shantytown outside Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. He lives in a
five-bedroom apartment in the Mission with nine other men. He and his
brother each pay $225 a month to share a bedroom.
Most of the money he makes goes for rent, Fidel says. Though he has been in
the United States three years, he still finds it difficult to scrape
together enough cash to send home.
But Fidel is not planning to give up soon. He has invested a sizable sum -
in dollars and nerve - just to get to San Francisco.
He paid $3,000 for a guide to take him across the borders: Honduras to
Guatemala, Guatemala to Mexico and Mexico to the United States.
Crossing Mexico was the worst, Fidel says. He traveled the 1,500-mile
length of the country by train - tying himself with a rope to the metal
couplers between train cars. He rested his feet on the stairs at the side
of the car.
It's a dangerous way to travel; one man he knew got his legs cut off by the
train when he fell asleep and slipped down too low.
"The journey was pretty horrible," Fidel says. "The economy in my country
is so bad, everyone wants to come to the U.S."
The workers face stiff competition.
When a prospective employer drives up, they flock to the vehicle, where the
boss, or patron in Spanish, tells them what he needs and is willing to pay.
The discussion usually lasts less than a minute. Those who can speak some
English have an advantage.
"You can compare it to the slave market of the 19th century," said Philippe
Bourgois, chairman of the anthropology and history department at UC-San
Francisco. "They literally can pick the perfect laborer, just as on the
auction block in New Orleans you could pick the perfect slave."
Along with James Quesada, an anthropology professor at S.F. State, Bourgois
has spent the past eight years doing field observation of the day laborers.
"It's what America thrives on," Bourgois said. "We get to suck out of the
rest of the world the healthiest, most energetic people, willing to take
risks to try and get ahead. It's an extraordinary phenomenon. You couldn't
find a system that provides you with a better, more disciplined, eager work
force."
A tall, white-haired man pulls into the Kelly-Moore parking lot. He gets
out of his car, approaches four men near the entrance to the lot and begins
an impromptu interview in Spanish.
"Any of you know how to work a chain saw?" the man asks.
"Yes, I've done that," says a man who gives his name as Victor. He talks a
little about his experience, which includes cutting large trees.
"Can you tell me the steps you go through to start the machine?" the
prospective employer asks.
"Yes," Victor continues, speaking Spanish. "You turn the switch to "on,'
open the choke, pull the cord, cut back on the choke. And there's a safety
chain brake, and if it's locked, you push it back."
Satisfied, the potential employer nods. "OK, you know how." He offers the
man $40 for half a day's landscaping work. Victor accepts.
The El Salvador native is 41 and has three children back home. He has lived
in the Bay Area only six months. He shares a $1,200, two-bedroom apartment
in Daly City with four nephews and a niece, he says. He manages to save
$300 each month, which he sends to his family.
The employer, who gives his name as Roy, says he has used day laborers many
times for his gardening and landscaping business, and considers them
essential to the Bay Area economy.
"It's such a hypocrisy the way these people are treated," Roy says. "If
they all went home at once, forget it. I think that industries would be in
really big trouble. Banks would fail. They would be begging them to come
back."
As long as the laborers "keep working and stay straight," they should be
left alone and allowed to stay in the country, Roy says.
In general, San Francisco has been more welcoming to day laborers than
other Bay Area cities.
Some, like San Jose, San Mateo, Oakland and Los Altos, have outlawed the
hiring of workers off the streets or made it illegal to sit on sidewalks.
Since the Board of Supervisors declared San Francisco a "city of refuge" in
1985, police have been prohibited from helping federal authorities deport
undocumented workers, except in certain circumstances. They also cannot
legally ask someone's immigration status or threaten to report a person to
the INS, unless he or she has been arrested for drug crimes or booked into
jail on a felony charge.
It has been three years since the Immigration and Naturalization Service
has deported Northern California day laborers solely on the basis of their
immigration status, preferring to focus instead on immigrants who commit
crimes, says INS spokeswoman Sharon Rummery. However, some immigrants have
been arrested in their workplaces.
And some people are not so sure the INS has backed off completely from
targeting day laborers.
"While there hasn't been a major raid in San Francisco against the day
laborers recently, we cannot assume that the INS will not continue to
conduct enforcement activities against day laborers, particularly if they
receive tips," said Renee Saucedo, chair of The City's Immigrant Rights
Commission and a staff attorney with La Raza Centro Legal, a Mission
District legal clinic.
Immigrants to San Francisco may be relatively untroubled by the
authorities, but day laborers have plenty to fear when it comes to the
employers themselves, according to immigrant rights advocates.
Virginia Villegas, a La Raza staff attorney, said she has represented many
day laborers in wage claims.
"They are very frequently not paid," Villegas said. "One frequent scenario
is they (the employers) will pick them up and say, "I'll pay you $10 an
hour to do some gardening work.' They work them nine, 10, 12 hours, and at
the end of the day will give them $50."
Others will tell a worker that they have two days of work, and will pay
them at the end of the job. But after the first day, the employers disappear.
"The employers just somehow believe that the workers won't complain,"
Villegas said. "The employers believe the immigrants have no rights."
However, even though most day laborers are in the country illegally, they
have rights under the law to be paid for the work they do and to get
workers' compensation, just as legal immigrants do. Many aren't aware of
this. And some employers are only too ready to take advantage of that
ignorance.
"They ask you if you have papers, and if you don't, they don't pay," said
Carlo, 32, a Nicaraguan who has lived in the United States five years. He
once worked two days on a job in Oakland, only to be paid nothing in the
end. The bad patrones, those who exploit workers, say things like, "You're
not on your turf. You're on our turf," Carlo said in Spanish.
On a recent Thursday, one of the day laborers pulled up in a U-Haul truck.
His boss had given him cash to rent the vehicle, but the job lasted two
days longer than planned. Now, it was time to return the truck - but the
worker had no way to pay the additional rental and now-significant mileage;
the truck had traveled to Santa Rosa and back.
Meanwhile, the boss was nowhere to be found, the man told his friends in
Spanish.
All in all, it is a stressful way to make a life, said Bourgois, the
anthropologist.
"It's a poignant illustration of the American dream, with its pitfalls and
tragedies, as well as its hopes," he said.
"You have people who make it. You also have other people who get crushed by
it." Only about 10 percent of those standing on the street find work on any
given day, Bourgois said.
Many of the laborers become clinically depressed - emotionally overwhelmed
by the financial strain, the culture shock and the separation from their
families, Bourgois said. They begin to lose ties with their loved ones back
home, yet, like many immigrants, never feel like they belong here.
Some residents don't want to see the laborers hanging out on the streets.
For Connie Ramirez Weber, a Mission District resident for 60 years, the men
represent a blight on the neighborhood. Near her home, at Shotwell and 26th
streets, they litter, urinate, defecate, harass women and even deal drugs,
she charged.
"I keep my block very clean. I sweep it every single morning," said Ramirez
Weber, 77. "But since they have come, they eat and they throw everything
down on the ground and I have to go sweep it up. This morning, there must
have been 12 standing around. Some of them do drink, and I don't mean coffee.
"Something has to be done."
Her daughter, Jane Perry, 50, who lives next door, agreed.
"They're gambling, they tussle each other, pretend wrestling and boxing;
they're totally bored out of their minds. I don't even want them standing
there. There's just nothing good coming out of it."
The managers of the Kelly-Moore Paint store said they too have had trouble
with day laborers.
"We've had gambling, fighting, theft from contractors' trucks, sexual
harassment, intimidation (of customers), assault with a deadly weapon,
drugs and narcotics, being under the influence," said Pat McDonald, vice
president of Kelly-Moore Paint Co.
The effects of being the No. 1 gathering spot for the workers prompted
Kelly-Moore four or five years ago to erect a 7-foot, 8-inch chain link
fence, separating its parking lot from the sidewalk. The company also hired
a guard to patrol the lot in the mornings.
Though neighbors claim to have seen it, San Francisco police said they have
not found day laborers to be active drug dealers.
"We've gone out and we've surveilled them," said Lt. Kitt Crenshaw of the
narcotics unit. "I'd say maybe one out of a couple hundred we've had a
problem with."
He said the 26th Street dealers might be other Latinos who live in the area.
Sgt. David Faingold of Mission Station said the drug dealers sometimes
dress like day laborers to throw police off their track.
Though some merchants and residents have complained about the day laborers,
others are supportive.
"The day laborers have been around for a long time, and they provide a
unique service to the community," said Jorge Hernandez, an architect who
owns Modus Operandi on 24th Street and says he has hired some laborers
himself, albeit those here legally.
"Sometimes they're very, very reliable," he said. "And they do everything
you want them to do and, "adios.' That's it."
German Martinez said he and other Day Laborer Program staff have tried to
teach the workers to clean up after themselves and take pride in their
status. "La esquina es tu oficina" - the corner is your office, he tells
them. On recent afternoon, a group of laborers on Bryant Street asked a
drunk who was lying near them to move along. They didn't want to be seen
with him, for fear that employers would pass them by.
Toby Levine, another Mission resident, said she feels sympathy for the day
laborers. But she sees the problems connected with them growing since last
year, when city outreach to the workers let up.
"I don't see the evidence that I used to see of sort of an active effort
both to try to help the day laborers and make it so that they're not a
neighborhood problem," she said.
In fact, the program has had its difficulties.
Because of an administrative slip-up, the Day Laborer Program lost its
annual $100,000 city funding about a year and a half ago, said Eric Mar,
associate director of the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant
Rights, fiscal sponsor for the program.
The coalition stepped in and provided interim funding, but was forced to
lay off the Day Laborer Program's three staff members, Mar said. They
continue to work on a volunteer basis. The program has won another $100,000
in funding from The City for the new fiscal year, along with an additional
$18,000 planning grant.
The grant will be used to consider relocating the program's office, which
operates out of two small trailers next to Franklin Square park, and to
examine the needs of the workers and neighborhood, Mar said.
For some, day labor has been the ticket to a better life.
Alejandro Anderson, a native of Chile, has spent 11 years here, starting
out as a day laborer. Now a professional painting contractor, he makes
$35,000 to $40,000 a year juggling an overflowing schedule of jobs - which
involve some 200 miles of driving a day. He occasionally finds day laborers
to help with painting.
Earlier this month, he hired Francisco, a man he knew from previous jobs,
who was waiting for work at the corner of Mission and Cesar Chavez.
Francisco, in turn, brought along his two brothers, Jose and Martin, to do
Anderson's assignment: painting the inside of a newly purchased South of
Market loft. Anderson paid $1,600 for the labor.
"There was a time when I didn't believe in myself. I was so down," said
Anderson, 33. After hitting bottom - living on the street, doing drugs,
drinking - he found the strength to try again. He eventually got more work,
honed his skills, learned English, bought a truck and got married. He and
his wife, Gila, have a nearly 3-year-old daughter.
But the success hasn't come without cost, Anderson said.
"The lifestyle here, it is exhausting," he said. "I work hard all the time.
I don't know if I'd fit in in Chile again. "Many people don't have a
chance, or they feel they don't have a chance. You've gotta have a really
strong will to get where I am."
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GLC1173
>Groups of day laborers first appeared on >San Francisco sidewalks in the
>mid-1980s, when mostly Mexican workers >driven from their homeland by
>poverty began gathering at Tiffany and >Duncan streets
Day laborers are the scabs of the 1990s and beyond.
How the hell do you get raises from any employer that can always just hire
from the day-laborer market at minimal wages?
>"You can compare it to the slave market >of the 19th century," said Philippe
>Bourgois, chairman of the anthropology >and history department at UC-San
>Francisco. "They literally can pick the >perfect laborer, just as on the
>auction block in New Orleans you could >pick the perfect slave."
This is a good analogy. Again, these people are undercutting American wages
as surely as slaves would.
>Since the Board of Supervisors declared >San Francisco a "city of refuge" in
>1985, police have been prohibited from >helping federal authorities deport
>undocumented workers, except in certain >circumstances.
This "sanctuary" is federally illegal since 1996.
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