Day-laborer debate hitting home

Chris James needed help moving a piano and three dozen boxes of records from his music studio. Instead of corralling some buddies, he rented a truck and approached day laborers from outside the local Home Depot. Within minutes, two men promised $12.50 an hour were in his truck.

The pair finished the job in an hour and a half while James, 31, looked on. For hauling a piano and wedging a sofa into his Burbank condo, then stacking the boxes in a back room, he owed the men less than $40.

It’s the kind of scene replayed daily across the nation.

It was the first time James hired day laborers, but it won’t be his last. “Absolutely satisfied,” he said.

The No. 1 employers of day laborers are private homeowners -- not construction contractors, not professional landscapers.

“Day labor is not a niche market,” said Abel Valenzuela, a UCLA professor and one of three authors of the first national day-labor study, which was released in January. “It’s now entering different aspects of the national mainstream economy.”

Forty-nine percent of day-labor employers are homeowners, according to 2,660 laborers interviewed for the study. Contractors were second, at 43%. The study also found that three-quarters of day laborers were illegal immigrants and most were from Latin America.

Homeowners hire them because they are a flexible labor pool with no red tape and no overhead. And they’ll do backbreaking jobs much cheaper than traditional contractors.

Day laborers like homeowners too.

Shady contractors routinely stiff them. Not homeowners -- the workers know where they live.

“And in houses, they give us food, water and soda,” said Herminio Velazquez, 48, taking a break from unloading record boxes at James’ condo.

Although some homeowners say they’re conflicted over hiring people who likely have no work documents, they don’t believe they are doing wrong. Many say only day laborers will do the tough jobs.

It’s an argument rejected by anti-illegal immigration activists.

“They know they are hiring illegal aliens and breaking the law,” said Joseph Turner, who is trying to force San Bernardino to outlaw taxpayer-funded day-labor centers. “They are contributing to the illegal immigration problem.”

Across the Southland, cities are dealing differently with increasing numbers of day laborers, many undocumented. Some have built day-labor centers; others have cracked down on workers when residents have complained of loitering.

In Canoga Park, day laborers may soon be able to find work at a site near the Home Depot, under a plan recently approved by a Los Angeles City Council committee. The full council must still approve the plan. A similar center was approved by the City Council in January for the Home Depot in Van Nuys.

In early May a federal judge prohibited Redondo Beach from arresting day laborers for violating a local ordinance against soliciting work in public. In the strongly worded decision, U.S. District Judge Consuelo Marshall said the ordinance violated the right to free speech.

So far, the federal debate over immigration reform has been fitful. The focus has been on criminalizing illegal immigrants -- a proposal that has stirred popular protest -- or giving them temporary work visas that might eventually lead to citizenship. Though U.S. Senate leaders vow renewed debate, legislation may not pass in this election year.

But while Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents occasionally arrest day laborers, they almost never go after homeowners who employ them. Their priorities are national security work sites such as ports and immigrant smuggling networks.

“We need to stop unlawful employment,” said agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice. “But working day laborers’ sites is not an efficient way to use finite resources.”

After 78-year-old Maxine Colby’s husband died six years ago, she needed odd-job help around her Malibu house. So, a few times a month, Colby started hiring day laborers. She pays $11 an hour and serves a hot lunch. Colby doesn’t ask about immigration status, nor worry about breaking the law.

“This is a system that works for most people,” she said. “If lawmakers can’t figure out how to fix it, I certainly can’t.”