Yonkers day laborers' fight for rights

by Angel Canales

Wednesday February 22, 2006

When I first moved to the United States from Puerto Rico at age 21, I held a job as a security officer in a residential building. I was not allowed to take lunch breaks. I remember taking a break one day and almost losing my job because the building’s tenants complained to my management company. I continued to work for this company due to my ignorance of labor rights, the language barrier and my financial burdens. After that day, I would avoid leaving my post for lunch, but I began looking for another job in which I could be afforded basic rights, including the right to eat.

However, my situation was far more tolerable compared to the deplorable conditions and abusive labor practices which many jornaleros (day laborers) must deal with everyday. Jornaleros risk their lives every time they are hired by a negligent contractor. These laborers are treated without dignity or respect as contractors allow them to work without safety tools, health insurance, or proper medical care after a work-related injury.

According to Luis, 33, of Mexico, he spent three days working in a damp basement removing mold and asbestos without a facemask, gloves and body suit; "I didn’t know about the health risk, until my colega [colleague] Guillermo told me about it." Exposure to asbestos has been found to cause lung cancer.
The lack of decent wages is another vital issue in the struggle of jornaleros. Jornaleros are often cheated out of their salary by contractors. Most of these workers either do not get paid after a long day of work, or are given wages that fall short of the New York minimum wage, which is $6.75 an hour.

One may wonder how this law is not enforced, but, contractors simply take advantage of workers by exploiting their undocumented immigrant status. Contractors threaten jornaleros by saying they will call immigration, telling them that they will be paid the next day or at the end of the week. In the case of Guillermo, 25, of Mexico, after working with his patron (boss) for seven months, his boss stopped paying him for almost three weeks. He was told that he was going to be paid after finishing a painting job in a health clinic in Mount Vernon. Unfortunately for Guillermo, that day has not yet come. When situations like this happen, all they can do is tolerate it and try to find another job as soon as possible.

These laborers gather around el palito, which is near Sarah Lawrence at the corner of Midland and Yonkers Avenues. The issue is so evident that it has not only attracted the attention and concern of community residents and city officials, but also of organizations like the Institute for Policy Alternatives (IPA) at SLC.

The IPA is a group of professors, students and citizens that want to address and explore reforms to improve social issues about race, class, language, labor and citizenship status. Within this organization is the IPA’s Community Advocacy Initiative (CAI). This group was organized, and is currently led by, Dean Hubbard, professor of labor history at SLC and senior Mika Lior. The group’s goals primary goals are to ensure that work conditions improve for jornaleros and to provide a network among workers so that they can start their own organizations and support themselves.

As Hubbard said,"Working jornaleros is a national issue in this country. They are transitional workers that come from the south back and forth to work and are constantly moving throughout the country. We just do not want to be their social workers and/or charity group; we want more of their own organizing. We do not want to reinforce an artificial hierarchy and leave the workers on the bottom."

"We want jornaleros to link with each other to reframe the situation and to reinforce their status quo," Lior added.
In so doing, the group provides information and training to students and laborers on possible solutions to the situation. Hubbard has a Day Laborer’s Employment Rights training class for SLC students which is set up so that each student can be familiarized with New York labor laws, learn how to file wage claims and collect wages from irresponsible contractors and gain more knowledge about laborers’ rights.

Another division of IPA is its community outreach and political organizing group. This program is the connection between jornaleros, students, local businesses, residents and religious organizations. On February 8, the program held a dinner forum on workers’ rights at the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. The event was held to socialize, create ID cards, coordinate OSHA trainings with laborers and provide information about solutions to their situation and their rights.

According to Lior, the event was a success: "The students cooked for the jornaleros. Most of these jornaleros cannot sit and have a meal in a formal dinning room area in their residences. At the event, they had the opportunity to have that ritual that most [of] us enjoy every day."

Other issues that the IPA and their community outreach division are focusing on are police harassment and creating facilities for the workers to gather and wait to be hired. In conjunction with the Asamblea General de Obreros Unidos (General Assembly of United Laborers), the IPA meets with city and police officials to assist laborers with the constant harassment and abuse by store owners and off-duty police officers. These officers try to remove laborers from the area by hiring them for fictitious jobs in faraway cities like Hartford, Connecticut or Babylon, Long Island, and leave them stranded at the location without the means to return.

In addition, these groups are trying to create a safe indoor space with bathroom facilities and room for the jornaleros to gather, hold meetings and wait to be hired. Currently, jornaleros wait in groups alongside Midland and Yonkers Avenues in areas that do not have sidewalks, creating a public safety issue for both jornaleros and drivers.

In addition, these laborers must withstand the cold temperatures of winter, tolerate human humiliation since they do not have any privacy and risk going to jail and being deported if they are caught by police while urinating in public.

Other IPA programs are on-site visits, worker’s center development, ESL classes for laborers and artistic self-representational opportunities. If your are interested please contact Mika at mlior@slc.edu.