Day Labor Central Opens in Portland
Tuesday June 17, 2008
Good news for day laborers in our city: Now there's an official location to gather and find work: at the corner of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and and Everett Street. Those looking for work as well as those who need help can utilize the site.
To keep things fair, workers are chosen through a lottery system. The site is open from 6 a.m. to noon Monday through Saturday, and when it's fully operational, there will be large tent for shade, with donated coffee and bread.
Not surprisingly, the center is controversial, begging the question: Is Portland promoting the exploitation of an illegal workforce? What do you think?
Comments
I recently Uhauled myself to Portland and used day laborers in LA to help load the truck and in Portland to help unload. What I saw was sad and touching and I would like to briefly relate it.
First, when I drove into the Uhaul place in LA, about 10 guys came semi-rushing at my car looking for day work. I wasn’t ready to load at the time so I just picked up the truck and left. The next day, however, I was done packing and ready to load, so I drove over to Home Depot where they line up in loose groups along Sunset Blvd. I pulled up to the curb where 2 guys where waiting, and as soon as I slowed down to invite them to work, they rushed the car doors and tried to jump right in, but my dumb ass had all the car doors still locked, so they just yanked the handles to no avail. And within about 2 seconds 5 more guys where there, and all of them started fumbling to get in, and with about 7 guys pulling on the handles I couldn’t work the power locks. One poor guy actually got knocked back on his ass away from the car doors in the scramble. Eventually I got the doors open and started saying “solomente dos! Necesito solamente dos, lo siento” in my sad Spanglish, and three guys jumped in, one jumped out, and off we went. They helped me load the Uhaul in about 90 minutes and I gave them each fifty bucks.
On the tail end I picked up three guys on Burnside, but this time I went up by foot to avoid any vehicle-related injuries in case there was another hiring rush, so to speak. When I got there I got mobbed pretty fast by about 10-15 guys who were very ready to work. They were respectful and didn’t physically get on me, so my reaction again was more surprise at (1) how badly they wanted to work, and (2) how fast they can move when they want to! I made eye contact with one guy and said I needed 3 this time, and he picked his two friends and off we went.
Out of an excess of caution and a bit of subconscious racism, probably, and because it was nearly lunchtime, I took the guys to lunch first and get to know them before I drove these 3 strangers back to my house and pile of boxed possessions. So we went to get mexican food at pepino’s on hawthorne - $25 for the 5 of us. They all spoke vary degrees of English, and I heard about their stories: emigration from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador (I had one of each, and no mexicans, go figure), the wives and daughters they are supporting, the health care they don’t have, and the $200-a-month rent they are struggling to pay. After lunch, I took them back to my place, they unloaded in a 90 minutes and helped me put some furniture together, and I drove them back to Burnside. I paid them $50 each and they seemed quite happy with that.
Overall the impression I got was that the day laborers out there are earnest, honest, and skilled, and just want to work and feed their families. I cannot conceive of a more noble purpose.
I think the day laborer site is a great idea for the laborers and potential employers because:
1. The lottery system will help with the “hiring rush” phenemenon which freaks white people out and deters them from using day labor. As a 30-something well built man I was made fairly uncomfortable by the intesity of 15 guys around me clamoring for a job, and I am generally comfortable with latinos, and this was in broad daylight on a major city street. So an organized lottery with a impartial manager to help match laborers and employers will make these workers accessible to a lot more people.
2. Many of these guys are skilled masons, carpenters, landscapers, and treating them all as generic “workers” fails to take advantage of their individualized expertise. If we had a screening system, we could match skills to the job needing te be done, and the quality of the work done would improve.
3. Unemployment –> poverty –> crime. If PDX can support its day laborer population on a living wage you can bet there will be a decrease in the secondary effects of poverty: crime and hard drug use.
4. Having a tent, bread, and coffee is simply compassionate and humane, and PDX should set an example for our nation.
And on a personal note, I try to be earth conscious, and this is supposed to be a green city. WHY IN GOD’S NAME are we giving our hard-earned money to Monsanto, funding their GMO research, and ruining our environment with toxic weedkillers like Roundup when we can take a person off the streets and give them a job for a mere $10 a hour for yard work?
Good work, PDX. Keep it up.
San Francisco has had a day labor office for a long time. I have used laborers there many times over the years and have always been impressed with how courteous they are and how hard they work. I have never had any problems with any of the men I hired.
I am so pleased that Portland has organized this portion of our unemployed workforce in such a great way. We needed some day labor with a home project and my husband went down and hired several men to help him. Not only were these men hard working but also so very appreciative of the opportunity. We really have nothing but respect for those laboring to support their families during these hard times. We have other projects requiring extra help and we plan on giving them the work again. I hope everyone is encouraged to go down hire & support this workforce.
Suzie