CALIFORNIA COMMENTARIES : A Case of Overkill to Curb Day Laborers : Instead of mediating black-Latino friction in one neighborhood, Supervisor Burke would ban curbside hiring everywhere.

Today, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to consider, and probably will approve, an ill-conceived law drafted by Supervisor Yvonne Burke. The law, in effect 30 days after board approval, is intended to eliminate curbside day-labor pools by criminalizing the act of asking for work or otherwise discussing one’s availability with an occupant of a vehicle.

Picture yourself, one of thousands of people with earthquake-damaged homes, stopping your car to speak with a contractor working on a neighbor’s home; 30 days from today, if you dare to have a conversation with the contractor while sitting in your car, both of you will be subject to arrest, $1,000 in fines and six months incarceration.

Burke’s law originated in the racially changing neighborhood of Ladera Heights, a middle-class, predominantly African American community adjacent to Inglewood. As is common throughout the county, Ladera Heights residents and businesses hire day laborers for short-term projects. Last year, some of the area’s residents campaigned against the presence of the predominantly Latino day laborers. Responding to the few residents intent on driving the day laborers out of Ladera Heights, Burke proposed the drastic “solution” of banning curbside hiring throughout the county.

Numerous civil-rights organizations appealed to Burke, proposing various policy alternatives that would address the legitimate and mutual concerns of residents and workers and lessen the rising racial and social tensions. These organizations specifically offered mediated dispute resolution, which has proved successful elsewhere, as a viable alternative to oppressive legislation. Organizations with expertise in setting up and managing day-laborer programs offered to help create a staffed and regulated hiring site.

Last October, Burke promised to support mediation. But in spite of her commitment and in spite of the efforts of residents, laborers and professional mediators to reach a meaningful resolution, she has decided to bring the law up for a vote today and effectively doom a local community’s opportunity to heal itself.

If unchecked, a few vocal residents of Ladera Heights also will succeed in eliminating the only means of support for thousands of families.

The racial tensions in Ladera Heights stem in part from the changing racial character of that community and hark back to a similar era about 20 years ago. In the early 1970s, new African American residents of Ladera Heights found themselves faced with the same intolerance facing today’s Latino newcomers. Some residents of the then-predominantly white neighborhood sought to prevent the formation of a basketball league by newly arrived African American residents, claiming that people would be “frightened” by groups of black men congregating in the park. Residents today point to this same pretextual “fear” of groups of men, now Latino, as a justification for violating others’ rights. Although Burke’s law could conceivably apply even to neighborhood kids seeking to cut grass and the homeowner sitting in his car in the driveway, it is clearly intended to criminalize, and thereby eliminate, Latino day laborers.

The state and federal Constitutions prevent the county from enacting a law that explicitly singles out one group of people. Thus Burke’s vaguely worded law, although attempting to avoid such discrimination, in all likelihood still is unconstitutional.

Day laborers have been an integral part of Los Angeles’ economy for decades. When the San Fernando Valley was predominantly agricultural, orchard owners relied on day laborers to harvest their crops. In recent years, the shrinking economy has forced more people onto day laborer corners in an effort to support their families. The existence and location of day-laborer corners is a simple factor of supply and demand. The particular corner in Ladera Heights that attracted Burke’s attention would disappear overnight if local residents did not regularly need and benefit from workers for short-term projects.

This law criminalizes socially and economically beneficial activity , at great expense to the taxpayer. A new category of crime will require the use of sheriff’s deputies, district attorneys, public defenders, court personnel and jail space to enforce it. Even ignoring the cost of conducting criminal prosecutions and incarcerating convicted day laborers, how does one begin to measure the cost to the county when sheriff’s deputies spend part of their days arresting law-abiding day laborers and not combatting violent crime? And while the direct financial costs of this law to the county can be measured, the human suffering that will be caused by needless criminal prosecutions and forced unemployment of thousands of workers is immeasurable.

Rather than taking on the admittedly more difficult task of crafting public policy based on Burke’s professed New Year’s goal of furthering harmony and easing tensions within our community, Burke is choosing the politically expedient but ultimately harmful path of punishing workers and their families for the “crime” of seeking work.