Job Center's End Won't Still Debate (Day Laborer's)

L.A. Times ^ | 3-17-05 | Rachana Rathi

[txdoda]

The Costa Mesa Job Center will close June 30, surprising supporters who lauded it as a model for finding jobs for day laborers since its 1988 opening and appeasing longtime critics who argued that the center should not be bankrolled by the city.

Believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, the site has often been at the center of debate over the government's role in job assistance and illegal immigration. There have been repeated attempts to close the center.

[txdoda]

(snip) "From 6 to 11 a.m. each day, an average of 104 job seekers, most of them immigrants, gather at the center, at Placentia Avenue and 17th Street. They register with a valid form of identification. Employers drive up, tell the staff the types of jobs they have and how many laborers they'll need. Each day, about 34 workers find jobs such as construction, delivering phone books or flowers, or taking a senior citizen to the doctor."

HEY !!WHERE ARE ALL THESE JOBS WE *NEED* FILLED ????

From the centers own records they show only ONE THIRD of the day laborers actually get work, & this is in LA.

Your tax dollars at work......

[txdoda]

FYI.....

(and don't miss this last part)

"The Los Angeles City Council is considering an ordinance to require all future home improvement stores to include day laborer job sites in their plans. The city funds 11 day-laborer job centers, spending $150,000 to $175,000 a year on each, according to a councilman."

[Caddis]

In our rather smaller town these guys just come to a certain street corner at about 6 or 7 AM and off they go to a day's work. It's informal, but it works. I think the ratio is probably similar. Contractors who want the best workers avoid this and hire for the long term. It costs a little more but the workers are more devoted to you because you are more devoted to them. For a quick job, the street corner provides a reliable workforce. For the workers, the jobs suck and so does the pay, but the good ones get snapped up for long term employment.

[Tarantulas]

They built one of those here in Phoenix and the city councilwoman who proposed it was immediately the subject of a recall effort. I think it's still there though.

I think the Feds should come in and arrest the Mayor for violating federal law.