Day laborers plan PR effort
Day laborers in L.A. and around the nation launched a volunteer service campaign Wednesday in an effort to change their public image and show business owners, residents and politicians their desire to be part of the communities where they work.
“There has been a lot of hatred, resentment and attacks against day laborers,” said Pablo Alvarado, head of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “We believe we cannot respond with the same animosity.”
From now until December, Alvarado said, workers will plant trees, paint churches and clean up trash in their local communities.
Roughly 117,000 day laborers work in the U.S. every day, finding temporary jobs in construction, gardening and housecleaning. The workers and the areas where they gather have drawn controversy, in large part because many are illegal immigrants. Critics say that the workers shouldn’t be in the U.S. and that they cause a public nuisance by waiting for work on street corners and sidewalks.
Alvarado said that through the community service campaign he hoped communities would see dayworkers “as assets and not as problems.”
-- Anna Gorman
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