Report Lists Ways To Protect Day Laborers
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Four years after the city created a commission to deal with the issue of day laborers, the group has issued its final report on how to protect those workers and hopefully get them off the streets. NY1's Ruschell Boone filed the following report. Abused, threatened, and cheated out of their wages, those are just some of the problems that day laborers say they face on a regular basis. Now, they are hoping the city will do something to help workers like them.
"I think that one of the problems we have is that they think we are immigrants and we don't have papers," said day laborer Raymundo Garcia.
In most cases, they do not have the papers, making it that much more difficult for them to find jobs through regular channels.
Local advocacy groups estimate there are about 10,000 day laborers in the New York metropolitan area. Hoping to address the problem, the Temporary Commission of Day Laborer Job Center, which was created by the city in 2005, has made its final recommendations to the mayor and City Council speaker on how to improve services for those workers and hopefully get them off the streets.
In its 10-page report, the commission recommended that the city continues to fund community-based organizations to create or expand job centers, where the workers can learn English, along with workplace health and safety training.
"They are a critical part of our workforce and we feel that these recommendations will help the city address in a comprehensive way the needs of these workers, particularly now with the downturn of the economy," said Guillermo Linares, the city's commissioner of immigrant affairs.
"For organizations like the Latin American Workers Project, we don't have so much of the resources to help them with the proper help," said Latin American Workers Project Executive Director Oscar Paredes-Morales. "With this recommendation and the support of the city, we can be more effective."
Once a day laborer lands a job, many are underpaid. To combat that problem, the commission also recommended that the city supports organizations that monitor labor and wage laws.
"These workers are a critical part of New York City workforce," said Linares. "In fact, immigrants represent 45 percent of all the workers in the city. Low wage workers are most vulnerable."
The mayor's office says it will now work with the City Council on a plan to implement the recommendations. Day laborers say they hope these changes come soon.
"I hope that everything they say is going to happen, because we really, really, really need help," said Garcia.