Councilman Alleges Employees at Hiring Hall Taking Bribes : North Hollywood: Mike Hernandez says day laborers are victimized by city workers. A committee will investigate.

A Los Angeles City Council member Tuesday alleged that Latino day laborers have had to pay bribes to city workers at a North Hollywood “hiring hall” in order to get jobs.

The allegation was made by Councilman Mike Hernandez as the council vigorously debated whether the city should continue to operate the program for day laborers or allow a private community organization to run it under a city contract.

Hernandez told his colleagues that he had heard that the “rumor on the street” is that “you pay someone to get a job” through the program.

To get work at the innovative employment sites, laborers are supposed to submit their names each day for a maximum of two trades--such as carpentry or gardening. When an employer shows up looking for a worker, a lottery system is used to determine who will be sent out on the job.

In an interview later, Hernandez said that “city workers are receiving compensation to get people on the list for jobs . . . and in my book that’s a bribe.”

He said the council’s Administrative Services Committee, which he chairs, would investigate the charges.

The city’s hiring halls were established in 1989 in North Hollywood and the Harbor area to reduce problems, such as traffic congestion and loitering, associated with Latino day laborers congregating on street corners to solicit work. The North Hollywood hiring site is on Sherman Way, between Laurel Canyon and Lankershim boulevards.

An expansion of the program is planned. Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents part of the east San Fernando Valley, urged that an expanded program include Van Nuys. “Whether it’s done by contract or by the city, I want more of them,” Wachs said. The need for a hiring site at Kester Avenue and Victory Boulevard “is great and there’s an increasing need in Sunland-Tujunga,” he said.

Meanwhile, city officials and council members who represent the areas where the sites are located, said they know of no evidence of bribery in the program. Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who represents the Harbor area, scolded Hernandez for making allegations about graft.

Hernandez does a “disservice to make these allegations without backup,” Flores sharply told her colleagues.

“If Mr. Hernandez has some evidence, I want to know about it,” said Councilman Ernani Bernardi after the council meeting. The North Hollywood employment site is in Bernardi’s district.

Bernardi said he doubted whether day laborers would have enough money to even pay kickbacks or bribes to get the low-paying jobs available through the program.

Hernandez said Bert Corona, a Pacoima-area community activist, had told him of the rumors about the payments-for-jobs practice. Corona, founder of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, an immigrant aid group, could not be reached for comment.

Frank Acosta, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, the only private party to bid to take over the operation of the hiring halls, urged that the charges be investigated. The coalition submitted the only bid to perform the $269,000 city contract.

Last July, the council voted to solicit bids from private groups to operate the program. However, the council members whose districts are most affected--Flores, Bernardi and Councilman Marvin Braude, who represents the area where the proposed third site would be located--recently have had second thoughts. The council Tuesday voted 8 to 2 to withdraw its offer for a contractor to run the program. Voting to keep alive the search for a private operator were the council’s two Latino members, Hernandez and Richard Alatorre.

Bernardi said he was displeased that a privately run program in his district would not be run by an agency based in the Valley.

Braude and Flores said the city’s program had a good track record and should be retained. Braude said it is already difficult to find sites for such programs because of opposition from homeowners and businesses. He said “to cast aside the hard-learned lessons” of the existing program would therefore be “unwise.”

Acosta said his coalition was proposing to provide laborers with services such as legal aid and job training at the sites. Those services are not currently offered.

Acosta said he believed foes of his agency are “harping on a fear that we are an advocacy group that will rabble-rouse.”