Home Depot: Damned if you do, damned if you don't

Forbes.com ^ | August 11, 2003 issue | Bernard Condon

[yankeedame]

OutFront

Damned If You Do

Bernard Condon
08.11.03

Can Home Depot call the cops on members of an ethnic community it's courting?

Just days after eluding the police by crouching behind a garbage can, Roberto Perez returns to the scene of the crime: a Home Depot parking lot in Los Angeles where the Mexican immigrant joins two dozen other unemployed men hoping to get hired by shoppers to help out around the house. He doesn't have long to wait. A white van pulls up and he slips in beside a man who needs a hand laying electric wire he just bought from the store. The deal: $40 for five hours' work.

"It's okay pay, not great," says Perez, who on a good day can earn $70. "But I need to feed my family."

Home Depot (nyse: HD - news - people ) isn't thrilled that folks like Perez hang out at its stores, and would like to banish them. But in trying to devise a solution, the nation's largest home supplies chain has found itself uncomfortably trapped by competing interests. Whatever it does, somebody is going to take offense.

You might think a retailer would welcome a new service for customers right outside its door. The problem is that Home Depot has a thriving business of renting out on-the-books contractors who install its water heaters and windows and whatnot. If it condones cheap labor cutting into that business, the contractors will raise hell. Store customers have been squawking about the day laborers, too. The company says complaints about "theft" and "violence" have been pouring in.

Then there is the matter of setting a bad precedent. Home Depot has a no-solicitation policy--and is prepared, if need be, to boot Girl Scouts selling cookies out of its parking lots. Why get nasty with little girls? Well, that's the only way to keep out union organizers. Home Depot is staunchly nonunion.

Why not call the cops on the immigrants for trespassing? That might offend Hispanics, who account for a large chunk of retail traffic in the U.S. It also doesn't help that the company just bought two retail chains in Mexico, where workers (many of whom are undocumented) send remittances.

Home Depot's delicate solution: Hand out leaflets urging customers to look elsewhere for hired hands. Another tactic: Help groups set up "Worker Centers" near its stores where day laborers can apply for jobs. It opened one in Atlanta earlier this year, adding to a half-dozen mostly in California.

Alas, even this earnest effort could land Home Depot in hot water. Federal law says no one can "recruit or refer" illegal immigrants for jobs. God forbid the Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration Services conducts a raid on this image-conscious concern. The company says it is confident it is in compliance.

As if the feds weren't worry enough, local governments may come after the retail chain for not opening up enough Worker Centers. A Los Angeles councilman has demanded the chain fund a center in exchange for permission to build a new store.

Trying to make everyone happy is proving tougher than installing a double-hung window.

[goldstategop]

We like cheap labor without having to look at it. What's a company like Home Depot to do? They're stuck between our indulgence of illegal aliens for work no one wants to do and customers who don't want them congregating at a place they shop.

[PaulJ]

Trying to make everyone happy is proving tougher than installing a double-hung window.

You can't make everyone happy. How about doing what's legal (and right).Do to the illegals what they'd do to me, if I showed up trying to solicit business in their parking lot. Simple.

[goldstategop]

Agreed. But it would cost certain politicians votes.

[joanil]

We have a small coal vein running beneath our property, think they would be interested?

[Aetius]

It may be work that noone wants to do, but it isn't work that Americans are unwilling to do. That's one of the myths of the pro-mass immigration crowd. All of these jobs were done in past times when immigration to the US was moderate, and even today they are done somehow in areas of the country with few immigrants.

It may be true that Americans are unwilling to do these jobs under the poor working conditions that exist (low wages, no benefits, no bargaining powere), due in large part to mass immigration.

And if the federal govt did the right thing and reduced immigration it is not as if these jobs would go undone. First of all 30 yrs or so of mass immigration has ensured that there will be plenty of foreign born for decades to come. Secondly, economics tells us that if the labor supply were reduced while demand remained strong then several things would happen. Employers would increase wages and benefits to attract more willing workers, and/or they would find ways to increase productivity of existing workers, and/or they would invest in labor saving technologies.

I certainly won't cry if the man in the white van has to pay a few more bucks to have his plumbing done.

[Dr Warmoose]

Why not call the cops on the immigrants for trespassing? That might offend Hispanics, who account for a large chunk of retail traffic in the U.S.

Exhibit 'A' why the united States should discourage Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal. The contractors do the right thing by registering, getting licensed and jumping through whatever hoops it takes to be on the Home Depot list. The "day laborers", most who probably gave Uncle Same the finger over immigration and countless other laws, also give Home Depot and all of the contractors the finger when violating policy and tresspassing. These illegals show no code of ethics, no code of conduct and no professionalism when they screw their host country, the Home Depot, whose mere existance attracts customers to a centralized location, and the contractors with whom they are illegally competing.

These people are barbarians, and every moment that we appease these vile people - especially on the grounds that lest "we offend them", shows us as the idiots, wimps and cowards that we have come to be.

[Tacis]

Why doesn't Home Depot just call Presidente Fox, state the complaint and pay the fee? Fox will send a Mexican army unit (who are probably making a priority drug delivery in the neighborhood, anyway) to get rid of these folks, easy-peasy.

[MissAmericanPie]

I have laid a brick sidewalk in the front, I'm working on a 45X25 foot cobble stone patio at the side of the house and will tear down a wooden deck in the back yard. All without the help of illegals. I'm 5"6 one hundred and thirty five lbs. If I can do it so can anyone else. It's good exercise and keeps you fit and it's alot more fun and constructive than a mindless tread mill.

[cadillac cowboy]

"It's okay pay, not great," says Perez, who on a good day can earn $70. "But I need to feed my family."

For an 8 hour stint, that's about $2/hr. more than Walmart employees get before all the various gov. agencies extract their cut.....but I'm sure Mr. Perez duly reports any cash income to the proper authorities as well......

[Copernicus]

Any company with a proud policy to leave their isles unnumbered deserves all the grief they get from whatever source.

Best regards,

[Steely Glint]

We need to send these illegal aliens home and make sure that they stay there.

[upchuck]

Whatever it does, somebody is going to take offense.

DUH... what a no-brainer. Offend the criminals!!

[Biblebelter]

If I were running a burglar ring, I can think of no better way to case jobs than to get information from these undocumented and unregistered workers. In fact the Elizabeth Smart case was not about illegal aliens, but it was about the dangers of hiring people to work at your home whom you pick up off the street.

[genefromjersey]

It isn't just aliens: A lot of our own folks-mostly winos - make themselves available for day labor. I can remember hiring a guy to help me move one time: the negotiated "salary" was $ 5.00 and a pint of "that GOOD wine-kind that costs 50 cents a GALLON ".

[staytrue]

These people are barbarians, and every moment that we appease these vile people - especially on the grounds that lest "we offend them", shows us as the idiots, wimps and cowards that we have come to be.

Calling all mexican immigrants (legal and illegal) "VILE" and "BARBARIANS" for showing and interest in working and providing for his family, show us what an idiot you are.

[mountaineer]

There's no way I'd hire some guy in a parking lot to do wiring or carpentry, with no way of knowing whether Jose knows the first thing about construction. The college in my town built new dorms a few years ago, and the contractor had several dozen illegals laying brick and doing plumbing - and now they're having to redo a great deal of the work, due to shoddy, inferior construction.

[socal_parrot]

A Home Depot close to my house used to have a bunch of latino day laborers in and around the parking lot. Either the company or the city got rid of them. Now they stand in the Kaiser Hospital parking lot next door. Day laborers looking for work in a hospital parking lot is just plain creepy.

[debaryfl]

The obvious solution is for the U.S. Congress to pass a law instituting the Mexican Minimum Wage at $10.00/hour.

The Mexican govt. has been interfering in our domestic politics for too long. They push their laminated comic strip MC, and encourage dual citizenship to encourage Mexicans to vote in our elections.

They will gnash their teeth and wail about the Yankee Imperialists.

Yes, I know it's futile, but at least it'll be good for a laugh.