Posted on 01/22/2006 10:24:03 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(AP) LOS ANGELES The immigrant day laborers who wait for work on street corners across the United States have families and attend church regularly, and the people who hire them are more likely to be individual homeowners than construction contractors.
The first nationwide study of day laborers also found that one in five has been injured on the job and nearly half have been cheated out of pay.
The study, the most detailed snapshot to date of the mostly Hispanic and often undocumented immigrants who've become a focal point in the immigration debate, was based on interviews of 2,660 workers at 264 hiring sites in 20 states and the District of Columbia.
The authors said they were surprised by the level of community involvement among men often thought of as transients.
"The day labor corner is not as disconnected from society as people think. It's seen as a shadow economy, but that's really not the case," said professor Nik Theodore of the University of Illinois at Chicago, one of three study authors. The others were from the University of California, Los Angeles, and New York's New School University.
Standing outside a Home Depot store in suburban Burbank on Sunday, 33-year-old Raul Sanchez said that when he's not working, or waiting for work, he's involved in a church and tried to start a soccer league for fellow day laborers. The native of Mexico has been in the United States seven years and lives with his wife and two children, ages 13 and 14.
Sometimes he worries about small work sites with little safety equipment.
"We know nobody is going to help us out if we get hurt," Sanchez said. "There are risks, but what are we going to do — not work?"
As often as not, a day laborer's employer will be an individual rather than a labor contractor.
Forty-nine percent of respondents said they were regularly hired by homeowners for everything from carpentry to gardening, with 43 percent getting jobs from construction contractors. Two-thirds said they are hired repeatedly by the same employer.
Based on their interviews and counts at each hiring site, the researchers estimate there are about 117,600 day laborers nationwide, but say that number is probably low. They said it would be impossible to count the number of hiring sites nationwide, since some spring up spontaneously.
Among the other findings based on the interviews conducted in July and August 2004:
_Three-fourths were illegal immigrants and most were Hispanic: 59 percent were from Mexico and 28 percent from other Central American countries.
_Just over half said they attended church regularly, 22 percent reported being involved in sports clubs and 26 percent said they participated in community centers.
_Nearly two-thirds had children, 36 percent were married and seven percent lived with a partner.
_More than 80 percent rely on day labor as their sole source of income, earning close to the 2005 federal poverty guideline of $12,830 for a family of two.
_Of the 20 percent who reported on-the-job injuries, more than half said they received no medical care because they couldn't afford it or their employer refused to cover them.
Cesar Martinez, 45, another of the people waiting for work at the Home Depot in Burbank, is a Guatemala native who has been in the United States for 15 years without legal documentation. He said he sends $300 to $500 home every month to support his six children, ages 2 to 14, but that sometimes an employer rips him off.
"I couldn't complain because I'm not here legally, but I was so angry because I need every cent," he said. "I'm always thinking, 'Are they going to pay me, am I going to get to work 8 hours on this job, will I get hurt doing it?'"
Seven years and still doing day labor. It must suit him well. Maybe he doesn't like rigid schedules or having to dress to please an employer. He can take off any day he wants and turn down work he doesn't like.
This man wants to be a day laborer. He could get hired at a conventional job today.
Employers are required to pay those amounts, but I don't imagine those amounts are being paid for people being picked up at street corners.
If an illegal gets injured on your property while working for you, he could sue you. If the government has to pay for the illegals medical bills through Medicaid, they can probably sue you (why should the taxpayers subsidize cheap labor). Since you are ostensibly breaking the law by hiring an illegal not to mention not withholding, your homeowners may not cover it.
IMO, it's hard for many Americans to appreciate how poor much of Mexico is; by comparison the economic prospects of a illegal worker in the US sending money home can look pretty attractive - and not only can such workers do this, large numbers in fact actually actually do so.
As a group Mexicans living and working illegally in the US not only manage to pay their living expenses but also manage to send around 15% of their total earnings back to Mexico, the Pew Trust study estimates this flow at around $10,000,000,000 a year - a pretty vivid demonstration that such work is a common and realistic way to support family members remaining in Mexico.
Given that this is a contribution to the Mexican economy at least as large as total earnings from tourism, such numbers suggest that not only individual Mexican families but the Mexican economy as a whole derives a significant portion of its activity from the savings of Mexicans working illegally in the US.
To stop illegal immigration of such workers by penalizing the workers rather than their employers you not only have to make their lives unpleasant, you have to make it more unpleasant than at home - which if home is Mexican poverty and unemployment is pretty tough to do.
So IMO if you wan to slow illegal immigration for economic gain you have to penalize someone who actully has someting something to lose... that is, their employers.
Oh, did I mention that their kids have no reason whatever to accept what they are GIVEN in school and have no respect for the general community...and that no one expects it from them.
IIRC, some professor at Pepperdine U. did a study of Los Angeles day laborers.
He found that they did NOT want to be given legitimate governmental status.
Even these refugees from Mexico recognize the benefits of not being
tangled in our taxation and "social security" system.
I don't know about the employee having money deducted for workers comp - because they are illigals, they are paid generally cash under the table and the employees aren't reported by the employer. Like the study said, most of the people who hire the illigals are homeowners to do work around the house, and homeowners don't usually carry workman's comp.
"Doesn't seem any worse than the native born welfare and housing project trash who I have dealt with."
isnt any better either is it? This is supposed to be our standard? We might as will let bank robbers go free; after all they stole no more money than the last guy! Seriously I find the description of this type of activity great additions to our community, and that it is no worse than it gets saddening to say the least!
"if the employee had money deducted for workers comp insurance"
That isn't a deductable item, it's totally the expense of the employer.
Homeowners that hire them should be arrested!
Same thing has happened in Green Bay.
Illegal aliens have taken over an apt complex and reduced the adjacent properties in value.
bump
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