Posted on 04/29/2006 10:08:17 AM PDT by LouAvul
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) - Chris James needed help moving a piano and three dozen boxes of records from his music studio - so instead of corralling some buddies, he rented a truck and hired some labor from outside the local Home Depot.
Within minutes, two Guatemalan men promised $12.50 an hour were in his truck.
If James, 31, worked solo "it would take all day."
The two men finished the job in an hour and a half while James looked on. For hauling a piano and wedging a sofa into his condo, then stacking the boxes in a back room, James owed the men less than $40.
It's the kind of scene replayed daily across the nation.
It was first time James hired day laborers, but it won't be his last.
"Absolutely satisfied," said James. "Relaxing."
The No. 1 employers of day laborers are private homeowners - not construction contractors, not professional landscapers.
"Day labor is not a niche market," said Abel Valenzuela, a UCLA professor and one of three authors of the first national day labor study, which was released in January. "It's now entering different aspects of the national mainstream economy."
Forty-nine percent of day labor employers are homeowners, according to 2,660 laborers interviewed for the study. Contractors were second, at 43 percent. The study also found that three quarters of day laborers were illegal immigrants and most were from Latin America.
There are myriad reasons homeowners hire the men who call themselves "jornaleros." They are a flexible labor pool with no red tape and no overhead. And they'll do backbreaking jobs much cheaper than traditional contractors.
Day laborers like homeowners, too.
Shady contractors routinely stiff them. Not homeowners -the workers know where they live.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.excite.com ...
You don't have to do payroll taxes if it is considered casual labor, I think the dollar amount is $400 to an individual.
You are also violating all the very same laws if you hire illegals and don't do all the same things.
There is a difference between "day laborer" and "employee". And i've noticed lately that the jobs the illegals are said to have include "meat packing" and "construction". Aren't those normally union jobs?
I haven't heard much discussion about union wages being a factor that compels businesses to hire illegals in order to circumvent the unions and thereby stay in business.
I am not in favor of businesses doing that, but only bringing up the point that artificial wage inflation by unions could be a very large component in this.
Texas City is the only one I ever heard him speak of but he he worked inside the ships painting. Later he worked on homes (Jim Walters?) that were insulated with asbestos.
I agree. I know so many American young people who are eager and willing to do odd jobs--although many seem shocked at first by the idea that they can earn money without having to find a "real job" at a fast-food place (where increasingly they are not welcome unless they are fluent in Spanish) or retail outlet or instead of being dependent on their parents. We risk losing a lot of our national character and entrepreneurial spirit if we don't foster the opportunity and desire to earn an honest dollar for honest work in our future generations.
People should stop believing all the slander about today's young people and give them a chance.
Then you know the wrong young people. All those I know get up early, unless they have had a special activity- like prom the night before.
Hey, I've got a high-school kid that would come work for you for 12.50 an hour. He'd be in heaven making that kind of hourly wage for hauling stuff around!
Have an x-ray taken of your pleura (side x-ray) and let us know the results. It is true, though, that the majority of the fatalities are also chimney people.
Correct!
I do stuff all the time, in a comercial building and I'm not a licensed contractor. All you need is a permit and proper inspections. Anyone can fix just about anything, so long as they read up on it.
I'm with you..........
What's the old phrase about telling a lie often enough and people start believing it?
Kudos to your husband, but I still hate roofing and tar.
I never said you didn't need permits.
You don't have to be a contractor to take out a permit and like I said an owner can do any construction except install an electric meter panel and hook up to a city sewer, those 2 items require a license
You and me BOTH!!!!!!!
It's probably a terrible think to say - but thank goodness I broke my ankle last year - I've gotten out of all work than involves climbing a ladder. Which is a particularly good thing, considering I'm afraid of heights :)
I spent mostof my life as what I call a 3-H gal (heels, hose, hair)but my father made sure I knew how to do simple stuff like check the oil in my car, change a flat, swing a hammer and unplug a drain.......and also how to paint and hang wallpaper. My husband has taught me a whole lot more :)
We hired the guy to turn up the field not because we couldn't do it - but because I'm running out of time to get stuff in the ground and to do it by hand would have taken us another month....he did it in a couple of hours.
Another job I had in college was in a foundry that broke down big pieces of scrap metal -- car engines, wire, etc. -- into little pieces for smelting. Noisy, dirty, dangerous and toxic as hell -- it was paradise compared to roofing.
I've gotten the hint - you hate roofing :)!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't blame you in the least bit. My husband hates it as well - he did it in Texas and Arizona......Delaware, and now Virginia are not quite as bad.
"I hire her about 3 times a year..NO ILLEGAL will ever set foot in this house to take her job, even if they charge me 10 bucks."
Actually, I doubt there are many illegal aliens doing piano tuning, and if there are, you probably won't find them down at Home Depot. Piano moving, yes...tuning, I don't think so.
Home insulation was sold as vermiculite and contained asbestos fibres incidental to the mining process; even though they are included in the overall abatement efforts, these particular fibres are not of the type that indeed cause grave and lasting harm to the deepest part of the lungs.
I have boxes of study material that I collected from before the time a blanket ban went into effect and while the debate was raging the manufacturers opted for bankruptcy in the face of the overwhelming numbers of mostly unsupported lawsuits and the die was cast.
As it turns out, most of the asbestos that has the barb shaped fibres are not mined in the U.S. and it is these that actually hook onto the tissues and remain imbedded in the lung sacs where they can no longer be expelled by the normal action of the alveoli and end up rarely but fatally causing mesothelioma, a condition in violation of the sac itself.
Asbestosis is a disabling condition over time which effects are pretty much the same as chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD).
In cases of COPD where smoking is not involved a physcian will take a work history and any mining experience, cement worker experience or work around any material containing asbestos will be diagnosis with that influence being treated as a causative factor.
Coal miner's Black Lung, silicosis and other terms are used for medical purposes but do not indict the entire market in the way that asbestosis and mesothelioma have done.
In the end, most major systems shut down, use them while you can.
It doesn't always turn out so peachy, because they know where you live and breakins often happen after that. Of course, the murdered employers have had a much worse outcome than that.
Spoiled indeed.
I have one 17 yr. old nephew whose parents are well-off.
I don't think he has worked a day in his life.
He THROWS A FIT if either of his parents ASKs him to do anything (they always ask, never demand).
He has TWO vehicles- one sportscar and one SUV. He has aspirations to attend the Air Force Academy. Whenever reminded that he does not have acceptable grades to even get into a community college, much less the AF Academy, his response is that his dad will get him in. It will be entertaining watching that drama unfold in 2 years. Sad that they are saddled with a leech for the remainder of their lives.
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