Home Depot Project Aids Day Laborers

Hardware giant Home Depot is preparing to test a program here that has little to do with tools or paint, but if successful could grease the wheels for the chain’s massive expansion in California.

Addressing concerns about the day laborers who have become fixtures at many of its parking lots, the popular home-improvement chain has teamed up with a fast-growing temp agency to run a hiring center at its new Warner Center store, which is expected to open next month.

Tacoma, Wash.-based Labor Ready, which has 300 branch offices nationwide specializing in low- to semiskilled day labor, will use a roughly 3,000-square-foot building erected in the new Home Depot parking lot as a dispatch office to connect workers with potential employers. A similar program has been operating since September from a trailer anchored at a Home Depot in Monrovia.

“We don’t feel it’s a Home Depot problem,” Daniel Hatch, senior counsel for Home Depot’s western division, said of the day laborer issue. “But we recognize we’re associated with it.”

Although it remains to be seen how many laborers and customers will participate, Home Depot’s agreement with Labor Ready marks the most innovative attempt by a company to tackle the very public problem of unemployed men waiting for work on street corners.

Home Depot, which just last week announced statewide expansion plans that include five new stores in the San Fernando Valley area, has an especially big stake in trying to solve the problem because the issue of day laborers has repeatedly been raised when the company has proposed new stores in Southern California.

Politicians and residents from Anaheim to Van Nuys have voiced concerns over the years that the opening of a Home Depot in their neighborhoods would attract groups of day laborers, some of whom have caused problems ranging from drinking and urinating in public to harassing motorists and catcalling women.

By teaming up with Labor Ready, which posted sales of $298.6 million for the 11 months ending Nov. 21 and plans to open 130 new offices next year, officials from Home Depot are hoping to solve an image problem while providing laborers with a humane alternative. Those who choose to sign on with Labor Ready would not only receive basic equipment such as boots, back braces, hard hats and goggles but would be paid on a daily basis and have taxes and workers’ compensation insurance withheld from their checks.

The partnership will also provide Home Depot customers--ranging from homeowners to professional contractors--with a place to easily and legally hire help, since Labor Ready only employs documented workers. Customers could either call a Labor Ready office in advance or stop by as they shop at Home Depot to request workers who are ready to dig, paint, sweep, lift or clean.

Home Depot already has used Labor Ready workers throughout the country to help build and stock its stores. Establishing both businesses at the same location is a natural extension, according to Dennis Diamond, executive vice president of Labor Ready’s western division.

“Now, in one stop, customers can get supplies, equipment and labor,” Diamond said.

Finding a way to address community concerns has taken on a new urgency for Home Depot, which this month announced plans to spend about $850 million on 61 new stores in California over the next three years--including sites in Van Nuys, Burbank, Lancaster, Agoura Hills and Woodland Hills. Whether Labor Ready opens offices at every new site, however, will depend on the needs of the community, Hatch said.

At the Warner Center site on Variel Avenue, just south of Victory Boulevard, Home Depot officials are hoping that the Labor Ready office, coupled with greater police enforcement of anti-loitering laws and employer education about the benefits of hiring legal, insured workers will stave off potential problems.

The proposed partnership, however, is being met with skepticism by residents like Gordon Murley, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization.

“Labor Ready is fine,” Murley said. “We just don’t think you’re going to find that many people who are going to be willing to pay the extra amount [to hire a Labor Ready worker], but I would like it to prove us wrong.”

While prices vary depending on the skills required, Diamond estimates that Labor Ready will charge Southern California customers about $9.50 an hour for a manual laborer, with the worker making roughly minimum wage or a little over $5 an hour. Day-laborer advocates contend that workers can bargain better wages for themselves, ranging from minimum wage up to $7 an hour or more.

Authorities are also hoping the Labor Ready office will attract workers from an unofficial hangout for day laborers at Fallbrook Avenue and Ventura Boulevard, which for roughly seven years has prompted complaints and negotiations between residents, city officials, police and laborer advocates.

The possibility of contracting with Labor Ready came up about a year ago, according to Los Angeles Police Officer Steve Kegley. Then, when Home Depot’s plans for a new store in Warner Center ignited concerns about day laborers, Councilwoman Laura Chick’s office suggested that the hardware company talk to the employment company.

“Council member Chick doesn’t view Labor Ready as a magic bullet,” said her planning deputy, Ken Bernstein. “But she does view it as a crucial piece of a comprehensive solution to a difficult problem.”

A city-run employment center for day laborers could still be used in the West Valley, Kegley said, citing the success of centers in North Hollywood and Harbor City. Then laborers and employers would have a choice, he added.

“They could complement each other,” agreed Pablo Alvarado, who coordinates day-laborer issues for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Alvarado pointed out that the combination is already at work in North Hollywood, where Labor Ready has a branch office and the city also runs a day-laborer center. He said his main concern with the Labor Ready office slated for Warner Center is that the public will assume that workers who choose not to use it are undocumented, when in fact they may simply prefer to bargain work and salaries themselves.

Nonetheless, Alvarado said he has informed day laborers at the Fallbrook site of the plans for a Labor Ready office at the Home Depot.

“Some of them don’t manifest any interest,” Alvarado said. “But some of them do, although it’s not a large number.”

In Monrovia, Labor Ready has been dispatching between 30 and 50 workers a day from the Home Depot on Mountain Avenue, Diamond said.

The site was created in response to day-laborer problems at a now-closed Home Depot on West Huntington Drive. The situation caused so many traffic problems that the Monrovia City Council approved an ordinance in July making it illegal for workers to approach a motorist to solicit work and vice versa.

So far, the arrangement between Home Depot and Labor Ready seems to be working well, said Monrovia Police Capt. Roger Johnson.

But according to Alvarado, only one of the original day laborers has used the site, which he contends has attracted a different group.

“The rest of the day laborers who were in Monrovia moved to another area, where they created another corner,” he said.