MANASSAS, Va. – The payout is small, less than $1,200 apiece, but a group representing day laborers in Prince William County, Va. say it's a big accomplishment.
A judge in Prince William County Small Claims Court has ruled in favor of five day laborers who sued contractors they say cheated them out of their hard-earned pay.
The Orlando Service Center will be managed by Lathan Smith and Clay Warneke, and it is located at:
The Washington Post reports the judge ruled their employers owed them more than $5,000 in wages and court costs.
The workers are all immigrants from Mexico and were represented by the Woodbridge Workers Committee, which advocates for day laborers who wait for odd jobs at a 7-Eleven in Woodbridge, Va. Advocates say many laborers do not come forward when they are owed money because of their immigration status and the belief they can't win in court.
One of the cases involved a 50-year-old man who said he laid pipe for a Virginia Beach telecommunications firm for $10 an hour. He says he was paid for seven days of work but was owed for another 11 days. He says the company set up operations at a Woodbridge hotel but then just disappeared.
The Woodbridge Workers Committee is part of another local organization known as the Day Laborer Community Task Force (DLCTF), established in November 2004. The DLCTF is comprised also of members of the Woodbridge community and community advocates. Currently, the group does not include any contractor members – individuals hiring day laborers – though it is looking to fill that void.
A recent report from the DLCTF to the Prince William County board of supervisors recommends that the community develop a workforce center in Woodbridge with the following three qualities:
- The program’s primary focus should be to match laborers with employers, with some resources used for information referrals
- The program should begin as a pilot (time frames of 1, 2 and 3 years were discussed at DLCTF meetings) with regular review and possible oversight by the County on a 6- to 12-month basis if public funds are involved
- The program should be run by a nongovernmental, not-for-profit agency – ideally someone with 501c3 status
In the meantime, DLCTF’s report says the Police Department has worked with 7-Eleven to allow laborers to continue to use convenience store on a temporary basis, subject to agreed-upon restrictions, until the DLCTF can develop its recommendation.
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RESEARCH: THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF DAY LABOR | |
Day laborers can be found in innumerable cities and surrounding metro areas around the country. Lining up in the morning at convenience stores, bus stops and other community locations, these individuals wait patiently for contractors in many service industries to pass by when they need an extra pair of hands.
But unlike hiring a standard employee, day laborers don’t walk around with their resumes in hand – and many may not even speak enough English to tell contractors about their experience. So how is it possible to know who, exactly, these individuals are? Where do they come from and what are their backgrounds? The Day Labor Research Institute aimed to answer some of those questions, focusing on workers in Southern California. Here are the findings from the organization’s recent research report: “Day laborers in Southern California stand on street corners and in parking lots waiting for work. Day Laborers generally congregate in groups in the vicinity of prospective employers, usually near building supply stores, paint stores, or U-Haul rentals, or other businesses or places where customers commonly have a need for manual or skilled labor. Unorganized day laborers face being chased off by police, raided by the Immigration & Naturalization Service, forced to work for below-minimum wages, and abused by employers. Additionally, unorganized day laborers typically experience very low levels of work and are often cheated out of their wages altogether. Reportedly, an average of only 10 percent of day laborers find work on a given day. "Unorganized day laborers are the source of complaints from residents, motorists, and business operators, who may view their habits as contributing to a sense of public disorder. Consequently, local governments traditionally view the informal solicitation of work by day laborers as a law-enforcement problem or a social problem. This perception is mostly due to the day laborers’ habits of swarming around potential employers who stop in traffic to hire them, but also due to exaggerated stereotypes of day laborers, including that day laborers spend their time on the 'corners' drinking, selling drugs, and committing other crimes. Ironically, day laborers themselves define the men who do these things as drinkers, drug dealers and criminals. "Although 'swarming' sometimes frightens people, the practice actually originates with the employers, who motion to the day laborers from inside their vehicles, and then usually choose the first day laborer that arrives at the vehicle (or the first to open the door and jump into the vehicle). Day laborers explain that those who do not run will not get work. Our research revealed that the only time that the first day laborer to arrive is not chosen is when another day laborer is able to bargain down the wage to win the job (one reason day laborers often earn less than the minimum wage), or when the employer chooses to seek a worker with specific skills, which is rare. "Attempts by local governments to control what they view as a serious public nuisance problem have been varied, with mixed results. Approaches have ranged from routine enforcement by police to combat day laborers, to setting up 'social service agency model' day laborer centers, which cater to a variety of their needs. The former approach has generally proven ineffective as a long-term solution, and the latter has often proven expensive, with its own set of potential problems. Between these ends of the spectrum of solutions, a variety of different approaches have been attempted. The Day Labor Research Institute has conducted a comparative review of many of these approaches. An article on this research, entitled 'Addressing Day Labor: Comparative Solutions,' is available online at www.daylabor.org. A recent trend in Southern California suggests day laborers themselves may help cities find the best solutions. "The Day Labor Research Institute undertook a two year study of day laborers in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Part of this study was a survey of 100 percent of day laborers applying to five day laborer centers, and 100 percent of day laborers present on the day of the survey at several large, unorganized day laborer sites. The results give us the first non-anecdotal glimpse at day laborers: Source: Day Labor Research Institute |
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