2-Pronged Plan for Street-Side Job Seekers

As in so many other communities in Southern California, dozens of Latino men hoping to earn a day’s wage line up on Glendale street corners each morning, waiting to be selected by the contractors who will soon arrive.

Nearby merchants and residents have long complained that the day laborers have become a public nuisance. They say they have grown weary of the city’s inability to stop a long list of infractions by the men: drinking alcohol, harassing women, breaking bottles, urinating in public.

Now officials in Glendale believe they have come up with a solution to the problems without infringing on the workers’ rights.

First, the City Council moved to create a formal hiring hall for day laborers. But, in addition, the council passed an ordinance outlawing solicitation on public streets by laborers or their would-be employers.

“We think this is a very fair and balanced approach,” said Javier Ruiz, an officer with the Glendale Police Department who helped create the program.

Late this month, construction will begin on the hiring facility, on leased space on San Fernando Road, across the street from a Home Depot store. The center will be a simple, open-air structure with a shaded area and chairs for the waiting men, drinking fountains and a restroom. Though details have yet to be worked out, city officials say they envision a lottery system for handing out jobs. There will be two labor pools--one for general workers and another for those with plumbing, tiling, roofing or other special skills.

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Free classes in English and job-related skills are planned for the men as they wait for work. The operation will be run by two workers from a local charity.

The city’s new anti-solicitation ordinance, as it is called, takes effect Sept. 27. Police anticipate an “educational period” of about six weeks while the center is under construction, during which they will inform the laborers and those hiring them about the new law, and issue warnings to those who break it. Once the center opens, hiring day laborers on the street will become a misdemeanor, punishable by fines of up to $500 or six months in jail.

“Right now, I can’t make enough money to live in this way,” said Edgardo Ugalde, 27, an immigrant from San Luis Potosi, Mexico, who was soliciting work near Home Depot. “If they make it so it’s easier to get work, I would try it. I think a lot of guys would try it.”

Officials have acknowledged past difficulty in dealing with the problem.

“You can call the police, but they can’t be there every minute, so after a while they just come back and the problems start all over again,” said Councilwoman Mary Ann Plumley.

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Plumley, a real estate agent, once had an office near Broadway and Jackson Street, a popular meeting point for day laborers for more than a decade because of its proximity to a paint store. She said that although the day laborers mean no harm, the problems they create are real.

“When I worked there, I wouldn’t even walk down that block because it was just very, very uncomfortable,” she said. “They would loiter there throughout the day, and they could be very unruly when a woman walked by.

“What’s different now is that there’s going to be a place for [the day laborers] that will actually help them find work, rather than just hanging around. And we have a law in place that has teeth in it, that says where they can and cannot be, and also goes after the people who hire them.”

Hiring centers have existed since the mid-1980s--the city of Los Angeles currently has two, in North Hollywood and Harbor City--but without a law requiring the laborers to use the site, the competition for work keeps men out on the streets, flagging down cars.

The first known anti-soliciting ordinance in Los Angeles County aimed at policing day laborers was enacted in Agoura Hills in 1991. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law, saying it was racist and restricted the laborers’ rights of free speech and assembly, but ultimately the law was upheld in a federal appeals court. Since then, other communities have enacted similar laws, including a county ordinance to deal with day laborer problems in Ladera Heights and La Mirada.

But Agoura Hills officials now view their ordinance as a paper tiger, virtually unenforceable because of the large number of laborers who continue to gather at various spots in the city, and the people who defy the regulation and continue to hire them.

Glendale’s two-pronged plan has drawn widespread support from area businesses and residents, including Home Depot, which has agreed to donate building materials for construction of the hiring center and money to pay for staffing. The city has committed about $75,000 toward the construction.

Civil rights and immigrant rights groups that have in the past rushed to the defense of day laborers raised no objections as the plan glided through bureaucratic channels in recent weeks.

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Robin Toma, an attorney who has worked with the ACLU on issues affecting day laborers, said he is “cautiously optimistic” that Glendale’s approach will yield positive results.

“There is tremendous value to the approach of using hiring facilities. That gives [the laborers] a chance to provide for themselves and their families,” Toma said. “I think there is reason for concern, because this approach is coupled with an anti-solicitation ordinance, which is usually just a politically expedient means to outlaw the day laborers’ existence, and it rarely works.”

The hiring center will provide information on taxation and workers’ compensation to both laborers and the contractors. But those issues will take a back seat to the larger concern of managing a problem that has gone unchecked for years. “The most important thing here is that we have a problem, and we want to control it,” said Officer Ron Gillman.

Gillman said he hopes the new program dispels some of the community’s animosity toward the laborers, which he believes is both racially motivated and based on misperceptions.

While most people assume the laborers are “illegal aliens” and “criminals,” he said, two studies by the city of Los Angeles and a third by Glendale have shown that 75% or more are legal residents with work papers.

“When I first heard that, I didn’t buy it,” Gillman said. “But once I started interviewing the laborers as we started researching this issue, I discovered that many of them speak English. Many of them were laid off from construction companies or other jobs, and a lot of them have their green cards. They’re just trying to get by.”