Labor Center Seeks to Offer More Than Jobs

The two women crouch over the dirty bathtub, sponges in hand. The vacant Los Feliz Hills bungalow is caked with months’ accumulation of grimy dust, a tougher house than most of their cleaning jobs. But this assignment comes with a certain edge of pride.

Domestic workers Clara Choquin and Sandra Oliva landed this job through a program they’re spearheading at a new Hollywood community job center, a worker-driven endeavor that matches employers with qualified housekeepers. The program sets standard prices for services and teaches workers their rights under California labor law.

“We’re happy we’re all united, because people who are united get what they need,” said Choquin, 45, who has cleaned houses for six years. “Everyone is so excited because we’re organized and supporting each other.”

The domestic worker co-op is just one program at the city-funded center, where those workers have joined forces with day laborers and are quietly taking control of their employment.

This novel coalition represents a fledgling mobilization of a massive labor pool that keeps Los Angeles running--a mostly immigrant population often outside the protection of formal labor organizations.

Dozens of day laborers who once jostled for jobs on the corners of Santa Monica Boulevard now gather waiting for employers at the center, which opened last month.

“There’s more security and a sense of respect here,” said Celestino Figueroa, 42, who has worked the corners for three years. “Here, the cops don’t hassle us and the businesses don’t make us leave.”

In a few weeks, the center will offer classes in English, job skills and literacy while workers wait for jobs. Eventually, the co-op wants to use the site for after-school child care.

“Its implications are far-reaching for the labor movement,” said Abel Valenzuela, a UCLA professor of Chicano studies who is studying day laborers. “We’re talking about an eternally marginalized work force that is subject to various abuses. They’re so difficult to organize. To the extent they’re talking to each other, it’s very exciting.”

The first Los Angeles labor center to open in seven years, the Hollywood site goes far beyond the traditional Southern California labor exchanges where employers simply pick up workers.

“We intend this to be more than just a day laborer center,” said Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who worked with residents for six months to open the center. “We want it to be a vehicle by which [residents] can connect with each other. They have expressed to us their deep desire for work, and this will help folks empower themselves.”

The city leased the center site--a small parking lot on Virginia Avenue--from Sears for $1 a year and is also providing about $100,000 annually for three coordinators from the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California, a community organization helping the workers learn leadership skills.

“We have a saying that if people do not plan their future, they do not participate in their future,” said Raul Anorve, executive director.

Workers and the coordinators have met regularly, planning outreach and setting hiring guidelines. They know how to reach state labor officials for information about their rights. Many day laborers have spent the last six months lobbying their fellow workers on the corners, trying to persuade them to use the center.

“We would go out on the corners and tell people how it works, what the rules are,” said organizer Oscar Ramirez, 45. “We would explain to them we have a place where we can go.”

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Now, about 60 men come to the site daily. Although there are sometimes only a dozen jobs available, organizers said they are confident more will come.

“It’s an opportunity for people to survive, to better their lives,” said George Dermas, 42, a day laborer waiting at the center one recent early morning. “It’s so much better here. On the corner, a truck drives up and people push in front of each other. Fights break out. There’s no organization. But here, everyone gets along.”

As the men show up for work, the dark sky is just giving way to blue. Today, they hope, will bring a painting job, or maybe construction work.

The men go into the small trailer that serves as an office and give their names to one of the coordinators, who hands them each a bright pink raffle ticket. Another ticket with the same number goes into a big plastic jar.

Clenching their numbers, the workers go outside, stuffing their hands in their pockets to ward off the cold. Some play dominoes. One man takes a broom and carefully circles the lot, collecting small scraps of trash.

Most sit at the new wooden park benches under a temporary roof and chat amiably while they wait for the employers--the construction bosses, factory managers and homeowners making repairs. When someone arrives who needs an extra hand, a ticket is drawn out of the jar and the lucky worker has a job--at least for a day.

Unlike the corners, there is no pushing or shoving here. Instead, the men gather quietly in a circle when tickets are drawn and vouch for each other’s skills.

“These workers don’t fit the traditional labor union model, so they are taking matters into their own hands,” said USC sociologist Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, who has studied domestic workers.

“It might mean that employers will have to pay a little more . . . but most importantly, the repercussions for the workers’ families and children can only signal a healthier Los Angeles economy.”

Before the center opened, dozens of workers stood at the corners jockeying for work. Recalling his days as part of that crowd, Figueroa said being there was a question of necessity.

“We have to work to bring home bread for our family, money for the rent,” he said.

But life on the corners is tough. Like many laborers, Figueroa has been chased away from stores by police and cheated by unscrupulous employers. Figueroa said he once worked five days painting a house. When he went with his boss to a bank where he was to be paid, the man ducked out the back when Figueroa wasn’t looking.

Combating that kind of abuse is one of the main goals of the groups that have been trying to organize day laborers and domestic workers.

Organizers with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles have spent the last several years trying to help workers create groups to represent themselves.

Too often, the organizing has been impeded by the temporary nature of the jobs, workers’ fear of employer retribution and tensions among the workers themselves, said Victor Narro, workers’ rights project coordinator for the immigrant rights coalition.

The most successful efforts have been the small groups that develop on individual corners or at work sites, Narro said. That kind of leadership is developing at the Hollywood center, where four local women launched the domestic worker program because they felt they needed job protection.

“In this community, the women have not been very organized,” said Irza Flores, one of the leaders. “We decided we need to support each other.”

Like many day laborers in Hollywood, domestic workers grapple with the uncertainty of finding a job.

Joining an employment agency means shelling out money without a guarantee of a job, some say. But finding work without an agency is just as risky. Many times, people don’t pay what they have promised, or they ask workers to take on extra tasks without overtime.

“There is a lot of exploitation out there,” said Flores, 40. “We’re trying to let each other know what our rights are.”

Flores, like many other workers, only has one permanent cleaning job a week.

To make their program work, the women have been recruiting other domestic workers and passing out fliers to potential employers in communities like Beverly Hills and Hollywood Hills.

By the end of the month, the women hope to hire a coordinator to field calls from employers. The workers, who can wait for jobs at home, are creating membership rules and setting standard prices.

Choquin and Oliva found their job cleaning the Los Feliz house from one of the fliers left in the area.

“Our first job, isn’t it great? It’s tough work, but it means we’ve got a good start,” says Choquin, who hopes to get full-time work through the center. “It really seems we’re starting off well. I think this is going to work.”

For information about the Hollywood Jobs Center, call (213) 469-9002.