Need Outstrips Fear of Arrest : Employers Resisting Costa Mesa Labor Law

The Costa Mesa businessman espouses the kind of values that one might expect of a former Army sergeant who fought in the Korean War. He is patriotic, a straight-arrow conservative, he says.

And yet, several times a month he does something illegal. He leaves his fledgling drywall business, which he operates out of the garage of his home, jumps into his truck and drives to a corner on the west side of town. There, he picks up two or three Latino laborers for a day’s work.

The barrel-chested man with tattooed arms and a trace of an Oklahoma drawl knows that the city of Costa Mesa has forbidden such curb-side hiring but says he is undeterred.

“It’s just about the most foolish thing I can think of,” he said of the city’s day labor ordinance. “I ought to be able to hire whoever I damn well please. The city doesn’t know what my needs are.”

He and other employers like him are the prime reason that laws such as Costa Mesa’s will likely fail to resolve the complicated problems wrought by immigration, say scholars who specialize in the field.

The measures are designed to prevent large numbers of dayworkers--mostly Latino, many illegal aliens--from congregating at street corners, parks and other places to look for work.

Residents in many communities complain that the men obstruct traffic and business and harass passers-by.

“The dayworkers are a nuisance for people in town, and the council felt it took appropriate actions,” said Councilman Ed Glasgow.

But such laws, rather than forcing job-seekers from the area, merely drive workers and employers underground, add another layer of bureaucracy and make illegal conduct that traditionally has been valued, experts in the field of immigration said.

“They are examples of the kind of severe steps politicians are willing to take because of the fear of immigrants,” said Leo Chavez, a UC Irvine professor of anthropology who specializes in immigration. “When legislators feel pressure to do something, oftentimes what they do is misguided. It is very difficult to legislate away the need of employers for workers.”

Day labor ordinances have been enacted in three Orange County cities--Costa Mesa, Dana Point and most recently in Orange. But in Costa Mesa, the concept has been taken a step further.

Besides prohibiting the hiring of people off the street, the ordinance makes it illegal to be in certain areas of the city with the “intent” to solicit work.

Although the ordinance applies to anyone seeking to hire or be hired, its greatest impact has fallen on Spanish-speaking laborers, dozens of whom have been arrested.

The arrests have fueled charges by civil libertarians that the measure is unconstitutional and results in discrimination against Latinos.

Don’t Fit In

“The underlying motive behind the ordinance is that these people don’t fit into the community because they are brown-skinned, non-English-speaking foreign-born in a largely white, wealthy community,” said Linda Wong, executive director of California Tomorrow, a Los-Angeles-based group that promotes cultural understanding.

City officials deny that the law is intended to target or harass Latinos. “The law applies to everyone,” Glasgow said. “However, it may be discriminatory in impact because the ones violating the law are of a particular ethnic origin. They are the ones causing the problem.”

Critics also say that the ordinance ignores a key factor in the migration of illegal aliens into Orange County: a robust Southern California economy that has produced a demand for skilled and unskilled labor that cannot be met by U.S. workers.

Authorities predict that the need for workers will far outstrip growth in the U.S. work force. It is estimated that more than 700,000 new jobs will be created in Orange County in the next 10 years.

Aside from the economic demand, an established base of relatives and friends will ensure a continuous stream of immigrants to California, experts say.

Absorbs Flow

The state already absorbs more than half the flow of both legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico, according to demographic studies. And the metropolitan area of Anaheim-Santa Ana ranks eighth in the nation in numbers of Mexican immigrants it receives on an annual basis, ahead of such cities as Phoenix, San Francisco and Denver.

Many experts argue that these immigrants, both legal and undocumented, have spurred or at least helped to preserve the economic boom Californians have enjoyed for several years.

“The availability of this labor source helps to hold down prices of many consumer goods and services,” Wayne A. Cornelius said in a study of the role of Mexican labor in the U.S economy. Cornelius is director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UC San Diego.

He discounted arguments by those who say undocumented workers put a drain on U.S. taxpayers.

“Consumer spending by immigrants and their families . . . has stimulated local economies and growth,” Cornelius said.

Employers Ignore Law

Most experts agree that despite provisions in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act that prohibit the hiring of undocumented workers, many employers will continue to use such labor.

In a survey of 177 California firms that depend on an immigrant work force, 31% reported they would go out of business if forced to rely only on legal residents, and 35% indicated they would continue to hire undocumented workers despite immigration reform.

Forty-three percent of the construction firms surveyed indicated they would continue to hire illegals, while 50% of high-tech/electronic firms said they would not stop hiring such workers. The figures are included in a soon-to-be-released study conducted by Cornelius.

Undocumented workers are especially attractive to businesses because they are more likely to tolerate lower pay and, more important, a less secure working environment, said UCI’s Chavez, who previously worked with Cornelius at UC San Diego.

There is a preference in many industries for part-time, temporary workers who can be hired quickly off a street corner and disposed of just as quickly, Chavez said.

Hiring Hall Didn’t Work

He said it is not surprising that even the establishment of a city-sponsored hiring hall has not kept dayworkers off Costa Mesa streets.

“Many employers don’t want to draw attention to themselves as employers of casual labor; they like a certain amount of anonymity,” said Chavez, who criticized the city’s decision to only allow legal residents use of the hall. “These types of employers typically replenish their work force through informal networks.”

Several employers who said they would only use the city’s job hall to obtain workers nonetheless agreed that many of their competitors continue to hire illegal aliens off the streets.

“Contractors do it all the time. It’s more convenient for them,” said Clark Dailey, who identified himself as a Huntington Beach developer during an interview at the job center.

“I suspect that many (employers) think they can get that type of labor cheaper, but they can also get into a lot of trouble picking people up off the street,” said Joe Strange, an employee at a Costa Mesa plumbing company who was at the job center recently to pick up one worker.

One employee at a Costa Mesa carwash, an industry identified by the Immigration and Naturalization Service as relying heavily on undocumented workers, said that on occasion, his boss sends a truck out to pick up workers from city streets.

“Sometimes you don’t have any choice because they are the only ones willing to work here,” said the employee, who asked that his name not be used. “Car washing is not something your upwardly mobile kid thinks about anymore.”

Indeed, Sam Olivito, executive director of the California Car Wash Assn., said that many industries must hire whoever is available because of the nature of the work.

“People are leaving to go get a job at McDonald’s because they can make more money,” Olivito said. “I don’t think immigration reform will ever solve the problem of people entering this country illegally or of people willing to work in industries that others do not want to work in. Employers will hire whoever they can.”

Still, Olivito said, most carwash firms are adjusting to immigration reform and do comply with the guidelines.

City Councilman Glasgow said he has little sympathy for firms that hire workers of the street, no matter the rationale.

Workers Available

“If they need workers, they are available at the hiring hall,” he said. “I would like to see the employers cited more than the workers.”

Chavez and other critics contend that laws restricting day labor spring from a politically charged atmosphere of fear rather than practical considerations.

Dayworkers “are a perceived problem in a lot of areas around Southern California,” said Fran Bernstein, an attorney in the employment law office of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. “As long as (politicians) get phone calls, there will be pressure on them to do something. But we believe there are better ways to go about it.”

Working with the Legal Aid Foundation and other community groups, several Los Angeles County communities decided to back away from such day labor ordinances as Costa Mesa’s.

The Los Angeles City Council earlier this year voted to spend $90,000 to set up a pilot project establishing six hiring sites around the city, Bernstein said.

The first is scheduled to open in the Harbor City area next month. The city will not check the legal status of workers who use the sites, Bernstein added.

The city of Glendale also opted to experiment with a hiring site set up at a Catholic youth center rather than implement a day labor ordinance.

Everyone’s Interests

“These solutions take everyone’s interests into account, but with the (assumption) that people looking for work are not doing anything illegal and that it is basically a good thing,” Bernstein said.

There are at least a few officials in Orange County who also decry attempts by such cities as Costa Mesa and Orange to rid their communities of dayworkers.

City officials in Laguna Beach, for example, view the scores of laborers seeking work in that community not as a “problem” but as a complex social phenomenon, said Mayor Robert F. Gentry.

He said the city’s decision to allow dayworkers and employers to gather at a site on Laguna Canyon Road has worked well for all parties.

“The overriding dynamic is that Laguna is a community whose citizens pride themselves on accepting and celebrating diversity,” Gentry said. “There is a difference in philosophy with the actions of a city like Costa Mesa because we think people realize that the day laborer is an integral part of the work force, especially in a tourist-driven economy like ours.”

The INS, the agency charged with enforcing immigration laws in the country, has generally applauded efforts of local officials to resolve the day labor issue.

But an INS spokesman conceded that ordinances such as Costa Mesa’s are not likely to be effective.

“Picking up the aliens is only a Band-Aid approach,” said John Brechtel, assistant director of the Los Angeles district of the INS.

Brechtel said the agency is considering a program that would target day labor sites in Los Angeles and Orange counties and would seize vehicles of employers found to be hiring undocumented workers.

In limited use of the technique, about 18 employer-owned vehicles have already been seized at sites in the Los Angeles area, but officials have not decided if there is sufficient manpower and resources to conduct widespread investigations against employers, Brechtel said.

“If we had everything in place, a full-time vehicle seizure officer and the necessary investigative resources, we could have a tremendous impact on day labor sites,” Brechtel said.

Ultimately, laws such as Costa Mesa’s, if successful, may increase exploitation of workers and induce unemployable workers to resort to crime, said critics.

In any case, they said, they are not likely to have the effect that city councils intended: to rid cities of day laborers.

“As we can see very plainly, people continue to cross the borders,” Wong said. “Despite exploitation, low wages and harassment, (opportunities) here represent more than than they can achieve in their native country.”