http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5685736.html
Day laborers build solidarity network
Group will fight wage theft and urge better pay, work conditions
For thousands of day laborers in Houston, picking up a good-paying job on a local street corner can be a struggle.
The housing market's slowdown has made work scarce. Day laborers also say employers often offer them one wage but pay less when the job is done. Other employers string workers along for days with a promise to pay, and then vanish.
That's why Mexican immigrant Jacinto Vasquez has joined the Houston Network of Day Laborers, formed over the weekend by approximately 200 day laborers.
Their goal is to improve working conditions, set a minimum wage they'll agree to work for and fight wage theft.
''I have a good opinion of the group," said Vasquez, an undocumented worker who moved here from Mexico in 1999. ''If this brings us support, it would be good ... for all of us."
The issue of day laborers in Houston and around the country has been a flashpoint in the debate over illegal immigration, largely because most of the workers are undocumented.
The newly formed Houston group is part of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, based in Los Angeles, which has set up similar networks around the country.
3,000 day workers
The local day labor group was established at a Saturday conference with help from Houston immigrant rights group America Para Todos, said organizer Maria Jimenez.
Next month, the Houston network will convene to form a leadership group, drawn from representatives of various street-corner hiring locations.
Houston has an estimated 3,000 day workers who frequent 29 street intersections looking for work, Jimenez said. The off-the-books labor force swells to 5,000 on the weekends, she said.
Jimenez, a longtime immigration activist, said the network is needed because day laborers face myriad problems.
''The network is important to bring together day laborers from the different sites to articulate their collective voice, identify their needs, express their rights and define their strategies," she said.
Group denounced
But the group was denounced by Houston activists lobbying for stricter immigration enforcement.
''That's not the American dream, to have people come here and get cheaper and cheaper wages," said Louise Whiteford, president of Texans for Immigration Reform. ''That's what the big corporations want: to eliminate the middle class."
Whiteford questioned the security consequences of workers in the city without valid documents.
''We have a terror situation," she said. "Why do we want people we don't know floating around the city?"
However, Jimenez said some day laborers can legally work.
''Not all don't have documents," she said. ''Some are U.S. citizens; some are legal residents; and some are Central Americans with temporary work permits. What you have to understand is they are day workers who fulfill a function in the economy."
Day laborers, including Vasquez, say they now have somewhere to turn for help.
''There is no other alternative," he said. ''Who do we make a complaint to when we're cheated? The police won't believe us."
Day laborers build solidarity network
Group will fight wage theft and urge better pay, work conditions
For thousands of day laborers in Houston, picking up a good-paying job on a local street corner can be a struggle.
The housing market's slowdown has made work scarce. Day laborers also say employers often offer them one wage but pay less when the job is done. Other employers string workers along for days with a promise to pay, and then vanish.
That's why Mexican immigrant Jacinto Vasquez has joined the Houston Network of Day Laborers, formed over the weekend by approximately 200 day laborers.
Their goal is to improve working conditions, set a minimum wage they'll agree to work for and fight wage theft.
''I have a good opinion of the group," said Vasquez, an undocumented worker who moved here from Mexico in 1999. ''If this brings us support, it would be good ... for all of us."
The issue of day laborers in Houston and around the country has been a flashpoint in the debate over illegal immigration, largely because most of the workers are undocumented.
The newly formed Houston group is part of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, based in Los Angeles, which has set up similar networks around the country.
3,000 day workers
The local day labor group was established at a Saturday conference with help from Houston immigrant rights group America Para Todos, said organizer Maria Jimenez.
Next month, the Houston network will convene to form a leadership group, drawn from representatives of various street-corner hiring locations.
Houston has an estimated 3,000 day workers who frequent 29 street intersections looking for work, Jimenez said. The off-the-books labor force swells to 5,000 on the weekends, she said.
Jimenez, a longtime immigration activist, said the network is needed because day laborers face myriad problems.
''The network is important to bring together day laborers from the different sites to articulate their collective voice, identify their needs, express their rights and define their strategies," she said.
Group denounced
But the group was denounced by Houston activists lobbying for stricter immigration enforcement.
''That's not the American dream, to have people come here and get cheaper and cheaper wages," said Louise Whiteford, president of Texans for Immigration Reform. ''That's what the big corporations want: to eliminate the middle class."
Whiteford questioned the security consequences of workers in the city without valid documents.
''We have a terror situation," she said. "Why do we want people we don't know floating around the city?"
However, Jimenez said some day laborers can legally work.
''Not all don't have documents," she said. ''Some are U.S. citizens; some are legal residents; and some are Central Americans with temporary work permits. What you have to understand is they are day workers who fulfill a function in the economy."
Day laborers, including Vasquez, say they now have somewhere to turn for help.
''There is no other alternative," he said. ''Who do we make a complaint to when we're cheated? The police won't believe us."
