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By Ron Howell
Newsday
January 16, 2003
With some of them wondering what took so
long, City Council members Wednesday began tackling the issue
of what to do about day laborers — the immigrants who wait
on street corners around the city for work.
“I’m amazed at the years and years
and years that this has existed,” said Helen Sears, a Democrat
whose district takes in parts of the Roosevelt Avenue day laborer
strip in Queens.
Wednesday marked the beginning of a long
“debate which we really haven’t had in our city”
about the mostly Latino workers who seek day-to-day, mostly off-the-books
employment, said Bill de Blasio, chairman of the General Welfare
Committee that held the hearing.
It is estimated there are about 15,000 day
laborers in the New York area. According to testimony Wednesday,
they often get cheated out of their wages because they are undocumented
and speak little English.
Community residents frequently complain
that the men are a public nuisance.
Seeking possible solutions, council members
seemed particularly interested in a special hiring hall set up
in Bensonhurst last year. Rather than gathering on the streets,
scores of men now go to the site near the Belt Parkway at Gravesend
Bay.
Contractors who go there must register with
officials at the site and agree to pay certain wages, sometimes
$12 an hour or as much as $20 an hour, according to testimony
Wednesday.
The site is administered by the Brooklyn-based
Latin American Workers Project.
One day laborer, Pedro Pelico Martinez,
of Guatemala, said he goes to seek work at the new site, but many
laborers refuse to do so. “They still stand on the corners”
because contractors prefer to recruit from the streets because
they can pay lower salaries and don’t have to sign registration
sheets.
Eric Gioia, whose Woodside district includes
day laborers, said he would like to see the workers issued official
identify cards, perhaps distributed by their respective consulates,
that would be recognized by city agencies. This would allow the
day laborers to open bank accounts, he said.
“They are like sitting ducks”
for robbers, said Gioia, referring to the fact that laborers are
paid in cash and keep money at homes, according to testimony.
One union official testified that day laborers
for the most part are grossly underpaid and do not receive training
for dangerous jobs they take.
“The plight of day laborers is one
that is long overdue for government oversight,” said Michael
J. McGuire, director of governmental and legislative affairs for
the Mason Tenders’ District Council of Greater New York and
Long Island.
McGuire would like to see the immigrants
unionized.
“These people are mistreated, placed
in life-threatening situations, cheated out of their wages, exploited
in every way,” he said.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
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