PICO-UNION : Workshops Planned on Laborers’ Rights

A local immigrant rights organization is developing a program to teach leadership skills and basic workers’ rights to day workers.

The Pico-Union-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights recently received a $25,000 grant from the Rosenberg Foundation, a Bay Area fund dedicated to community development and justice issues, to expand their outreach program for day laborers.

The funds will enable the organization to develop workshops in which the laborers--a large number of whom are immigrants--can learn about the rights they have whether they are skilled or unskilled, legal residents or not.

Day laborers commonly congregate on street corners and wait for contractors and home owners to pick them up for temporary jobs as construction workers, carpenters, painters and gardeners.

“Often, they don’t know they have the same rights as everyone else,” said Nancy Cervantes, who directs the program.

Cervantes said day laborers often do not know that they are entitled to at least minimum wage, overtime pay if they qualify (under state law, construction workers do not qualify) , workers’ compensation if injured on the job, and safe working conditions. And like regular employees, they cannot be discriminated against based on race, religion or nationality.

In the workshops, the laborers also learn of the rights they have under two city ordinances passed last year, one of which precludes them from seeking work on public property in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, and another that allows them to seek work on commercial property, but only in designated spots.

Since the ordinance took effect in July, Cervantes said, there has often been confusion among security personnel employed by commercial property owners, who erroneously force day laborers off their property.

In the city of Los Angeles, there are no restrictions on where day laborers can seek work, but some residents and merchants are less than hospitable.

“Unfortunately, the best corners where they get the most jobs are also the ones where they’re the least welcome, since they’re usually in middle-class neighborhoods,” Cervantes said. “It’s like, ‘We’re glad to have your labor, but we don’t want to see you on our streets.’ ”

The workshops will also teach the laborers about their civil rights in the face of harassment from security personnel and police, and they will learn what they can or cannot legally be cited or arrested for.

The day laborer program will borrow elements of a successful leadership program for domestic workers staged last year by the organization, which taught them how to stand up for their rights in the workplace through workshops that included the use of illustrated comic books about “Super Domestica ,” a house-cleaning super-heroine who would fly to the aid of beleaguered domestic workers with advice.

The domestic workers also learned to develop their own blacklists of abusive employers and learned the basics of legal advocacy.

Although the comic book strategy may not be used this time, the day laborers will be encouraged to share stories about trouble spots, learn how to meet and negotiate with police to work out problems, and how to self-police their own corners to ensure that local residents and merchants have no legitimate complaints.

Cervantes believes the workshops will begin next month.

Volunteers in areas where day laborers congregate will also be sought for the “Adopt-a-Corner” program, to distribute information to laborers about how the organization can assist them.

Information: (213) 353-1336.