Day Laborers Demand That Congress Protect Workers
by Rick Gann

September 26, 2002

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) a nationwide coalition of Day Laborers marched on Capitol Hill on September 26th calling attention to exploitive working conditions and urging support for the Day Laborer Fairness Act (HR 2755). Day Laborers, people who work and get paid on a daily or short term basis, constitutes a growing segment of the U.S. economyís labor force. The day long rally included visits by Day Laborers to Congressional offices to give first hand accounts of the exploitative practices of employers nationwide. Day Laborers also presented evidence at a Congressional briefing urging national civil rights reform. NDLON seeks to articulate a national political agenda for a group of workers that has largely remained invisible on the political landscape.

Lobbying in the House of Representatives

The focus of NDLON is to create a multi-level organization with goals ranging from national legislative protections to local work centers, the key to reform the group believes is organized labor. NDLON is seeking support for legislative reforms that would provide the basic cornerstones of a just work environment, including the right to a safe and healthful work environment, the right to be paid a living wage for a dayís work and the right to search for work with dignity.

Day Laborer Fairness Act:

• Ban fees or wage deductions
• Check cashing
• Health and Safety equipment
• Transportation between places of hire and work sites
• Establish wage parity between day laborers and permanent employees with similar tasks.
• Mandate weekly and daily overtime rates
• Ensure a minimum daily rate for day laborers
• Compensate day laborers for traveling time between point of hire and work sites and for time spent waiting for late employers
• Prohibit day labor employers from reneging on wage agreements
• Prohibit the use of day laborers as strike breakers

The NDLON is made up of Day Laborer groups ranging from Long Island New York to Malibu California. The Bay area was represented by three groups from San Francisco, Oakland and Mountain View. All three groups sent elected delegates to urge support for the Day Laborer Fairness Act, each group was able to describe to Congressional Staff members the difficult conditions in which there constituents strive to earn a single days pay.

During the Congressional office visits the Oakland Day Laborer group, La Lucha Unida De Los Jornaleros (The United Struggle of the Day Laborers) lead by Carlos Mares articulated specific hardships Day Laborers face here in the Bay Area. In Oakland an anti-solicitation ordinance was passed last year making it illegal to attempt to gain employment from a street corner, the ordinance calls for fines for both the Day Laborers and the employers. This city ordinance coupled with recession has made finding a job for the Oakland Day Laborers only a memory. Carlos Mares states "They never took in to account what the effect would be on the jornaleros. We need to work to survive".

As the amount of the day laborers waiting for work on urban and suburban streets continues to increase more communities are confronting the "Day Laborer Problem." The National Day Laborer Organizing group believes given the overwhelming power imbalance between employers and individual Day Laborers the key to success is organized labor. "In Phoenix, in San Francisco, in Morristown, day laborers face the same obstacles, the same enemies," said Lelis Martinez, a worker form Maryland. "Without other workers across the country, we are alone: without organization, we are nothing.

Information about the National Day Labor Organizing Network can be obtained via email at jornaleros@yahoo.com or by calling 213-353-1336