Blue-Collar Anxiety Visits Day-Labor Sites : Recession: Unemployed skilled workers, once disdainful of crowded labor corners, are showing up there to compete for jobs with Mexican and Central American immigrants.

Palmdale carpenter Bruce Davis once pitied the desperate crowds of immigrants on street corners who were willing to haul bricks or pound nails at the booming tract developments of the Antelope Valley for next to nothing.

For every truck that pulled over in search of a few strong hands, mobs of men would swarm, begging for a chance to work at $5 an hour. The unlucky would be left on the sidewalk in the hot sun.

But last year, after a year of unemployment, Davis found himself on the street corner--once the domain of Mexicans and Central Americans whose illegal status here and lack of job skills and English forced them to the lowest stratum of the work force.

“I used to think: ‘I’m the boss, I’m too good to dig a hole,’ ” said Davis, who journeyed to a city-sponsored day-labor corner in North Hollywood. “Now, it’s a little different situation.”

As the recession continues, its impact is being felt at the region’s crowded day-labor corners, in small but no less tumultuous ways.

For the first time, a smattering of whites and skilled craftsmen such as Davis, once disdainful of the day-labor corners, have begun appearing to compete for jobs. Their plight reflects thousands of blue-collar workers pushed into lowered expectations and humbling anxiety over the fine line that separates security from despair.

Among them are carpenters thrown onto the streets by the building bust, oil workers from Texas hoping for a new start, and marginally employable workers who have become unemployable in tough economic times.

Although their number is minute--perhaps one or two every few days, compared to the thousands of Mexican and Central Americans on the street corners--their presence speaks volumes about the effect of 18 months of recession.

“It doesn’t feel too good to be here,” said Mike Standish, who a year ago was working as a $14-an-hour boilermaker. “I never thought I’d be the one coming out here.”

At 6 a.m. on a vacant lot off Sherman Way in North Hollywood, the morning light is just a grayish tinge in the sky. Bundled up in jackets and sweat shirts, 25 men are standing on the corner, breathing wisps of fog into the air.

For blocks around, men slowly trudge toward the corner as the rush-hour traffic blurs past.

Their corner on Sherman Way is a tiny fenced-in patch of gravel between an adult bookstore and a tire shop--one of two day-labor sites coordinated by the city of Los Angeles.

On an average day, 120 men will show up looking for work. On a good day, 40 men will be hired for temporary jobs. The average is more like 15 or 20.

“December was the hardest time,” said Rene Vasquez, the site coordinator for the past year. “There were a few days when there was nothing. They get depressed, but what can we do?”

Antonio says he is an illegal immigrant who has worked three days in the past month. “There are people who have been here for months that haven’t worked a day.”

Large layoffs, such as those in aerospace and related high-tech industries that eliminated 83,000 Southern California jobs in the past five years, have barreled past the day laborers with barely a trace. Los Angeles County’s unemployment rate, which has grown from 4.6% to 8.6% since 1989, has had less impact in a place where everyone is out of work to begin with.

In some ways, the dayworkers are buffered from economic storms because many of their employers are homeowners who always seem to be able to spare a few dollars for help around the house.

But the vast movements of the economy have rippled downward in subtle ways, such as the recent arrival on the street corner of the gabachos-- the North Americans.

Vasquez said he first noticed it last year. Four “hippies” from Tennessee, an Arab-American from Florida and a few local construction workers arrived in the summer. More have continued to trickle in since.

“Now we have to print our flyers in English,” he said, as he stared out at the men in front of his ramshackle office in a converted cargo container.

The appearance of the gabachos has been puzzling to many workers from Mexico and Central America, who feel that they are on the street corner only because they do not speak English or lack the proper immigration documents for legal work.

“Americans are coming here!” marveled one Mexican at the North Hollywood day-labor corner. “Look at them, they’re born here, they speak the language and they’re looking for work here, too.”

The new arrivals say they favor the city-sponsored corners because they are more organized than the casual corners where job hunting can be a free-for-all swarm over every passing vehicle.

Among the group are craftsmen and skilled workers who rode high on the flush decade of the 1980s only to find themselves in a dizzying descent in the ‘90s.

Davis, the carpenter, said that in the heyday of the building boom, skilled carpenters were making $25 an hour in the Antelope Valley. Craftsmen from Wyoming, Texas and other parts of the country flocked to the high desert.

They had their pick of jobs, paid for their trucks in cash. “It was booming,” Davis said. “Every day, there was at least six carpenter ads in the paper. Life was good.”

But the bust struck with blazing speed.

After a year of unemployment, Davis ventured into Los Angeles and by chance drove by the day-labor corner in North Hollywood.

He parked next to the corner and was surrounded by workers who thought he was hiring. “I said: ‘Hey, I’m looking for work.’ ”

Within a few days, a contractor contacted the site coordinator, asking for a skilled carpenter, Davis said. He decided to call the contractor himself and after several interviews was hired at $14 an hour.

“I’ve taken a drop in pay, but a few hundred dollars a week is a lot better than no-hundred dollars a week,” said Davis, 41. “I was down to absolutely nothing. Another three weeks and I would have been down at Burger King cooking up fries.”

Some workers are convinced that only the lazy gabachos come to the street corners because the thought of native-born Americans unable to find work when they can speak the language and have no fear of immigration authorities is almost inconceivable, they say.

“These are people who only want to work a day or two a week,” one man said, sneering at the new arrivals.

Among the groups of men huddled over a game of checkers or scrambling for a battered soccer ball, there are murmurs of resentment that the gabachos always seem to find permanent work ahead of others who have waited on the corner for weeks or months.

But for most, the arrival of the North Americans has prompted little feeling--mainly because there are so few. If anything, there is sympathy for the newcomers.

“It means less jobs for us, but we don’t feel threatened,” Antonio said. “We understand they are in the same situation as we are.”

Indeed, some of the gabachos see their stay on the street corner as only a phase that they believe will lead to permanent work--a feeling of optimism shared by most of their Mexican and Central American counterparts who have come north for a better life.

Texas oil worker Ken Bailey came to California this month in search of new opportunities after being laid off from his oil job. He came to the day-labor corner in Harbor City after hearing about it from friends.

“Well, it’s not my cup of tea, but you got to do what you got to do,” he said. “I’ve always believed you’ve got to crawl before you can walk.”

But for most others, the journey to the street corners is an unmistakable descent to a place they never imagined they would find themselves.

A little more than a year ago, Samson Estoque figured he was well on his way toward retirement after 11 years as a journeyman press operator in a Torrance factory.

Estoque, a Filipino-American, came here 35 years ago and raised a family. He was making $14 an hour and did not know the meaning of unemployment.

His world came crashing down when he quit after an argument with his supervisor. Estoque figured that he would have no problem finding work.

A week went by, then a month, finally, a year. He lived in his car for months until he was forced to sell it for $100 to buy food. He has been living on the street and in shelters for two months.

When he was working he remembered seeing men on the corners looking for work, and he made the trip to the day-labor site in Harbor City.

“Sometimes, I work once a week, sometimes twice, sometimes nothing,” he said.

With no car and no home, he has grown despondent over his chances of recovering the life he once had.

“I used to think: ‘My God, how sorry it is for these people,’ ” Estoque said as he looked at the day laborers around him.

He broke into tears and wiped his face with the sleeve of a peeling vinyl-covered jacket. “I know it will get better for me,” he said.