Vagabundeando" o' Trabajando?

by Kaponda

Golden-clad rays from the fiery-rimmed, celestial globe ringed the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, as the moonlight had retired from another night of labor. The sunrise brought into full view the logo embroidered on the shirt of the man who culled me and one other man, Sam, from among the many men who were standing in the street waiting for work. It was the logo of the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey circus.

By the time the train cannonballed into the depot at Detroit, Michigan, Sam and I had become the spectacle on that dreary night in 1979. A band of circus cads had converged upon us for baneful sport. While I watched a sledgehammer quickly move toward the head of Sam, I split a 2”x4” object, that had been guided towards my temple, with my forearm. After the clowns, lion tamers, strongmen and other circus performers had retreated to their sleeping compartments, Sam and I collected our pay for our six days of labor and walked off into the Detroit moon.

Most day laborers will never experience the kind of hire-wire act that Sam and I had encountered when we were hired by the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey as laborers, while standing and waiting for work on the street in Indianapolis, Indiana. Most employers who hire people off the streets understand that we seek a clean and honest living through expenditure of physical efforts. However, there are those callous employers who exploit the labor of benign people standing on the streets of America.

If the registry of day laborers who have perished or contracted job-related illnesses at some back of beyond work site were opened for inspection, then the magnitude of danger would probably astound members of regulatory agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Short of walking off the job, there is very little, if anything at all, a laborer can do to avoid exposure to hazardous chemicals or accidents caused by unsafe working conditions and code violations.

Jose Escheddarillo has seen many of the schemes engineered by oppressive employers to extract the maximum efforts from day laborers without providing compensation equivalent to the labor. According to Escheddarillo, who, as a retired day laborer, has earned the recognizition as a living monument to the day labor industry, “a lot of employers have committed flagrant civil and human rights violations of health and safety work codes.” One of the founders of the San Francisco Day Labor Program, located at Franklin Square Park on 17th and Hampshire streets, Escheddarillo arrived in America in 1989, and, like the many other immigrants who have come before him, he wanted an opportunity to improve his life.

“I immediately realized as workers on the streets waiting to be hired,” continued the relic and current advocate of fair wages and working conditions for day laborers, “we were experiencing abuse from employers and people who were getting work from us. Back during the formation of the Day Labor Program, there were a lot of problems.”

The San Francisco Day Labor Program was created in 1990 by a collaboration of day laborers, neighbors and community service organizations. The program has provided a place where workers can find temporary and permanent work in a safe and supportive environment, without having to chase cars on the street. The San Francisco Day Labor Program also has provided free medical clinics, referral assistance, English classes and legal services to many of its clients in the Mission District. The San Francisco Day Labor Program offers these services to its clients and has developed a mechanism that allows a match between laborers who need work with employers who need laborers. However, like the offices of a circus, the Day Labor Program also currently operates out of two portable trailers that sit on a lot at Franklin Square Park.

Because Franklin Square Park is located a good distance from the original stretch on Cesar Chavez Street, where day laborers have been at the mercy of prospective drive-by employers for over 30 years, the San Francisco Day Labor Program has neither been able to prevent the continued exploitation of cheap laborers, nor provide laborers the protection from arbitrary abuses. However, the building which formerly housed Sears & Roebuck Company and more recently, the Employment Development Department, located right at Cesar Chavez Street, has invited bids from any employment-related, nonprofit who has expressed interest in relocating its business to that site. So, when I interviewed the Executive Director of La Raza Centro Legal, Anamaria Loya, I was surprised to discover that the proposal of the San Francisco Day Labor Program had been rejected by the master tenant of the building, the Department of Human Services.

“They were very hesitant and are basically saying that even though we are an employment-related nonprofit, they would not let us move in because the day laborers would not fit in with the other tenants,” stated Loya. But I was under the impression that day laborers have been at the Cesar Chavez Street corridor for over 30 years doing just that -- loitering! So I asked Loya to clarify her answer for this article? “The reason for not considering the day laborers for the hiring hall on Cesar Chavez Street,” continued Loya with a gracious tone, “is that they were afraid that the laborers would loiter around the building and were worried that the day laborers would not fit in with the other nonprofits....Who is so afraid of loitering? Men already gather along the street of Cesar Chavez. If we had a program there, then we would at least be able to help meet their needs. Our belief is that it is not that they [DHS] have a genuine concern, rather, we think they [DHS] have a disrespect for poor people because day laborers tend to be poor and homeless immigrants. I think it is just fear and disrespect of poor people.”

While everyone has been educated concerning the San Francisco Day Labor Program, employers continue to shop at the meat market where fiddle-footed laborers offer bargain-basement rates for their labor.

According to a letter publsihed in August of 2001, by the Director of the San Francisco Day Labor Program, Renee Saucedo, the new site on Cesar Chavez Street could address the concerns of loitering. “A location away from Cesar Chavez would be ineffective....,” states the letter and continues with “The relocation of the Day Labor Program is supported by many neighbors and organizations, including the Precita Valley Neighbors Association, the Southwest Mission Neighbors Association, St. Anthony’s Church, the SF Archdiocese, the SF Labor Council, the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Congress and other organizations.”

Since all the above-referenced community- and faith-based organizations have recommended the building at Cesar Chavez as the ideal site for the San Francisco Day Labor Program, I asked Anamaria Loya who at DHS actually rejected their proposal?

“The original person who rejected our proposal to use a portion of the building as a hiring hall was the Assistant to the Director of DHS....There was kind of a second rejection as well in that after we were initially rejected, we asked the mayor if he would lobby on our behalf and discuss with DHS our concerns, since DHS is one of the city departments under his watch. The office of the Mayor told us that ‘they did not have authority over their city departments.’”

The San Francisco Day Labor Program, after the rejections by DHS and the mayor put on a show of their own. It was the kind of feat that the master showman himself, P.T. Barnum would have applauded. Under the behest of La Raza Centro Legal, men and women, accompanied by the San Francisco media, marched into City Hall and demanded to know why the mayor had not provided support for the San Francisco Labor Program to move into the building where all day laborers could finally be centalized under one roof? But the lobbying efforts by La Raza Centro Legal did not stop with one action. Members of the Board of Supervisors were also contacted and responded with overwhelming support for the mission of the San Francisco Labor Program.

According to Loya, “the Department of Human Services has agreed to meet with us on Monday, February 12, 2001, concerning the possibility of moving into that site. Visits from Supervisors Chris Daly, Matt Gonzales and Tom Ammiano as well as phone calls from the office of the Mayor were instrumental in the decision to meet.”

On Monday, February 12th at 4:00 p.m., the Interim Director of the Department of Human Services on behalf of his department, expressed support of the San Francisco Day Labor Program in moving into the building on Cesar Chavez Street. Anamaria Loya, Renee Saucedo, two members of DHS and the director, Trent Rohr, discussed the concerns of the current owner of the building and how the San Francisco Day Labor Program would address those concerns. After the La Raza Centro Legal presents its proposal to allay those concerns the approval process will start.