Day Laborers Scurry Between Those Who Chase, Hire Them : LABORERS: Waiting for Work

The men who congregate in search of work each morning around Artesia Boulevard and Inglewood Avenue are seen as a collective nuisance, an unwelcome Third World intrusion into the tree-lined serenity of Redondo Beach.

But the immigrant laborers say what they want is work. Interviewed at this outdoor hiring hall Wednesday morning, several discussed their daily struggle in the underground economy and the opposition their presence has generated.

“We see people selling drugs in the streets,” said Humberto, a Guatemalan day laborer, speaking in Spanish. “We go by MacArthur Park (in Los Angeles) and we see people selling drugs and the police don’t bother them. But you come out here to look for work and they chase you, they give you a ticket, they arrest you.”

In interviews conducted in Spanish, some day laborers acknowledged the charges by area merchants, residents and police that prompted the Redondo Beach City Council to approve Tuesday an ordinance toughening prohibitions against soliciting work on the street and picking up would-be workers.

Some Problems

They admitted that some of their compadres do create problems by occasionally leering at female passers-by, sitting on lawns and urinating in alleys.

But they said most keep to themselves and mean no harm. If there were a legally designated area to look for work, they say they would gladly go there.

Those interviewed were recent, undocumented immigrants. Of the half-dozen men interviewed, all were from Guatemala except one from Mexico.

They arrive each morning as early as 6 a.m., about 40 men in baseball caps and work clothes clumped in morose-looking little groups along both sides of Inglewood Avenue, the border between Redondo Beach and Lawndale, waiting for the patrones , the men in pickup trucks offering work.

On Wednesday, the laborers played the daily game of cat-and-mouse with Redondo Beach police, who cruised the area in cars and motorcycles and sent job-hunters scattering merely by pulling to the curb. The police have also conducted sweeps in which they have posed as employers driving trucks and rounded up large groups of job seekers.

Protests in the last few years from merchants and residents spurred such crackdowns, police say.

‘Not the Greatest Image’

Tom Fouts, president of the North Redondo Beach Business Assn., said his group has led the effort against day laborers. “It does not create the greatest image for a business community. Most of them are basically hard-working guys trying to find a job, but a certain percentage are just drunks who use the area as a social gathering place. . . . They bring nothing to the community.”

Gabriel Salnan, who owns a shoe-repair business between Vail Avenue and Rindge Lane, about five blocks west of Inglewood Avenue, complained two years ago that immigrants soliciting work were hurting his business. Today, he says the problem has dissipated because police have pushed the men east to the Lawndale border.

Other merchants near the corner of Inglewood and Artesia say they would prefer the men went elsewhere.

“I’ve never personally seen them do the things I’ve read that people have complained about, said Wendy Johnson, owner of a corner flower shop. “I would prefer it if they weren’t standing there.”

Humberto and his friend Nigland were interviewed at Inglewood and Artesia in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Lawndale that is a one of the gathering spots. They said they live in North Hollywood and get up each morning at 4:30 for the long bus ride to Redondo Beach. They make that lengthy trip because there seems to be more and better work available in the upscale residential areas and thriving businesses of the South Bay.

$30 to $50 a Day

Nonetheless, they and others interviewed said the large number of people looking for work makes it hard to get picked up more than two or three times a week. The jobs in construction, painting and gardening pay between $30 and $50 a day.

“That’s more than you can make working one week at a factory in Guatemala City,” Nigland said.

Two other Guatemalans, Rolando and Carlos, said competition for day labor has stiffened with the passage of immigration amnesty laws, which increased penalties on employers who hired undocumented workers. More men are forced to take to the streets, they said.

“It’s tough, it’s very difficult,” Carlos said. “Sometimes you get work, sometimes you don’t. But it’s only a day . . . here comes the police.”

Carlos broke off the interview as a Redondo Beach police car slid around the corner and stopped in front of him. He and Rolando hurried across Inglewood Avenue into Lawndale.

Those interviewed recognize that they are not wanted in the area. They said if it becomes impossible to look for work there, they will have to go to other streets where day laborers congregate--such as a stretch of Sawtelle Avenue in West Los Angeles--or go directly to construction sites and other places where jobs are available.

“That’s harder,” Nigland said. “You don’t have the money to take the bus all over the place looking.”

Glendale Experiment

All of the laborers said they would welcome an opportunity such as that being tried in Glendale; the city has designated an area where it is legal to solicit day labor. “I think that would be the general opinion,” said Marcos, a soft-spoken Mexican teen-ager huddled in a vinyl jacket in front of Kentucky Fried Chicken. “An out-of-the-way place, if that’s what they want, where the patrones can go. “

Fouts said that idea was considered two years ago but rejected because it amounted to condoning illegal hiring.

Marcos said he arrived from Mexico 10 days ago. He borrowed money from friends to make the journey, he said, and so far he hasn’t made enough money to pay them back.

When asked where he would go if the tougher city ordinance shuts down his corner, Marcos said, “This is the only place I know.”

A few moments later, Marcos glanced over his shoulder as a pickup pulled into the restaurant parking lot. When the man at the wheel raised two fingers, Marcos excused himself and made for the truck. Two other men jumped into the back of the pickup ahead of him, and the driver shook his head at Marcos.

But Marcos jumped in anyway. The driver looked at him for a moment, then relented and drove off. From the back of the truck, Marcos grinned briefly and gave a thumbs-up.