Day Laborers Organizing to Fight Temp Agency Employment Abuses

On a cold day in late January, Lucila Flores decided she’d had enough. She discovered that none of her factory co-workers in Chicago’s gritty Back of the Yards neighborhood had received forms they needed to apply for a tax break for low-income workers.

Fed up with overtime abuses and difficult working conditions, the workers--mostly unskilled laborers hired through a temp agency--confronted their supervisor. The supervisor told the workers to leave if they didn’t like it.

By week’s end, the workers did leave, but not by choice. Flores and five others were fired. Their work was substandard, says an official of the temp agency. He denies withholding their tax forms and any overtime abuses.

But Flores, a demure immigrant from Mexico, complained, along with some co-workers and advocates. As a result, city officials closed the labor agency for operating without a license.

“Over there [in Mexico], you think you’re coming to paradise,” Flores says, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter. “I was really surprised. It was like slavery.”

In recent years the demand for temporary manual labor has grown dramatically in places such as Chicago, New York, Silicon Valley, Boston, Atlanta and Portland, Ore.

Because few states track agencies and many agencies keep a low profile, reliable numbers are scarce. But the growth in one agency is revealing. In 1989, Labor Ready started with one office in Washington. It now has 830 offices, including about 50 in Illinois.

Around 5 a.m. each day, thousands of people line up at these agencies looking for minimum-wage jobs. These are not “Kelly girls” headed to high-rise office buildings. Many are recent immigrants. Many are homeless. They work on assembly lines, in construction, landscaping or hotels.

They decry their low wages and accuse agencies of nonpayment. They also complain of discrimination and the lock agencies have on many permanent factory and manual labor jobs. Most make $5.15 per hour or less after daily fees for transportation (up to $5), meals and safety equipment (usually $2) are subtracted.

“I never made more than $35 a day after lunch and transportation,” says Aaron Griffin, 35. “It’s not enough to get out of a shelter situation. It’s not set up to get you out.”

Until March, he lived at a Chicago homeless shelter, getting up at 3 a.m. for the first round of day labor jobs. He spent most mornings in a cramped storefront office.

“They would say they have a big demand, just to keep you in case work comes up,” Griffin says of one unlicensed Chicago agency that has gone out of business. He says they often kept him past 8 a.m. promising work.

Griffin now works for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, advocating for day laborers.

To keep costs down, agencies rarely offer health benefits, and many regularly fail to pay Social Security taxes, unemployment compensation and worker’s comp premiums, according to a report by the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group. Some also disregard health and safety rules, the report said.

Agencies dispute these charges, saying the industry provides a first step into the labor market for many unskilled workers. They say the day labor industry has evolved to meet companies’ need for short-term labor.

Experts say the temp industry took off after the 1982 recession spurred American companies to downsize, creating demand for a cheaper, more flexible workforce. As the economy rebounded, companies began to depend on day laborers.

“Different agencies are adopting different ways to compete--many take a low-road, low-wage tack,” says Nikolas Theodore, director of research for the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “Instability and low wages have been a constant feature.”

Officials of day labor agencies say the complaints aren’t valid.

“Day labor serves a purpose for the community,” says Barry Poticha of Ron’s Temporary Help in Chicago. “It puts people to work who normally wouldn’t be working.” He says many like the flexibility of temporary work and don’t want a full-time job.

Day laborers and their advocates disagree. They say most day laborers are barely getting by and are desperate for work. They also accuse agencies of discouraging full-time hiring.

They say some agencies charge companies a fee when workers are hired permanently or require companies to wait 90 days before giving a day laborer a permanent job. Poticha acknowledges that happens, but not at his agency.

Shannyn Roberts of Labor Ready says that her agency doesn’t charge fees, and that 30% of the company’s 1998 workforce landed full-time jobs. Labor Ready also doesn’t offer benefits because most laborers work an average of 100 hours a year--not enough, she says, to take advantage of benefits.

Such conditions, workers and advocates argue, keep laborers in poverty. A recent survey of 500 homeless people in Chicago found that more than 80% earned $5.50 an hour or less at their most recent job.

There are signs of change. In January, Illinois became one of the first states to regulate the industry. A new law requires, among other things, that agencies provide laborers with a waiting room and bathrooms. It also limits transportation fees to no more than 3% of a worker’s daily pay--$1.24 for minimum-wage workers.

In Chicago, advocates for day laborers have asked the city for help in opening not-for-profit hiring agencies. (Flores and some former co-workers hope to run one.) With support from local politicians, they have shut down eight agencies in the last year for operating without licenses.

In other cities, advocacy groups are pushing for more regulation and higher wages and benefits for day laborers. In some places, they are organizing workers into unions.

But these are the exceptions.

“The norm is that there is nothing,” says Cathy Ruckelshaus of the National Employment Law Project. She says many laborers work in the suburbs and are harder to organize. And many illegal immigrants fear speaking up.

Change, Ruckelshaus says, takes strong organizations and workers willing to take risks.

Flores, seated at a church meeting hall at a table decorated with a single red carnation, has learned how painful that can be. She thinks of co-workers who are still unemployed.

Still, she has no regrets.

“I feel good about what I’m doing,” she says. “It’s good to see people opening their eyes and seeing that they can fight for something better.”

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On the Net: The homeless day labor study: https://data.cued.uic.edu/cued/

Labor Ready: https://www.laborready.com/homeWEB/default.asp

Working Today: https://www.workingtoday.org