Day labor center to open

Eron Ben-Yehuda

A job center for day laborers opens in Huntington Beach on Wednesday, but

critics prefer the doors remain shut.

Some worry that the center will turn into a city-sponsored tax dodge and

a haven for immigrants, while the workers themselves predict bringing

them all together in one place will create tussles over who gets what

kind of work.

The police department pushed hard for the center in response to

complaints about the 100 or so laborers who, on a daily basis, pick up

odd jobs on the street, Huntington Beach Police Lt. Luis Ochoa said.

Once the center opens, officers will crack down on workers who gather in

the Oak View community along Slater Avenue, by Loehmann’s Five Points

Plaza on Delaware Avenue and the Home Depot’s Expo Design Center mall at

the corner of Goldenwest Street and Edinger Avenue, Ochoa said.

Some will be fined or even arrested if they don’t stop soliciting work,

and the same punishment applies to employers who seek them out, he said.

Many merchants complain that day laborers who hang out in front of their

storefronts interfere with business, Ochoa said.

“It’s intimidating to many citizens, mostly women,” he said.

“Occasionally, we have men that use the opportunity to drink and become

intoxicated.”

They also create traffic problems when they rush around cars that stop to

pick them up, he said. And some leave litter behind.

Day laborer Gustavo Guilleu, 39, admits that some workers are out of

line.

But the group he stands with near the Expo Design Center is different.

“In this place, we respect each other,” he said. “We prefer to be here.”

There’s an understanding among the men, he said, about how the jobs are

divided. And each group of laborers scattered throughout the city has

more or less staked out a specific territory where others are not

welcome, he said.

But the center, by Gothard Street and Talbert Avenue, will lump everyone

together, Guilleu said.

“We can’t (all) eat from one plate,” he said.

Ochoa says the center will improve their lives by providing a safe and

clean place to find employment. And because the center, made up of a used

trailer and an outdoor shelter, will be run by two part-time city

staffers, employers may be less likely to exploit the workers, he said.

The taxpayers will definitely be exploited, said City Councilman Dave

Sullivan, the only council member who opposed the project, which was

approved in August 1998.

The $40,000 federal grant that paid for most of the center’s cost should

not be helping illegal immigrants, whom Sullivan suspects make up much of

the ranks of day laborers.

“Every dollar that’s spent on illegal aliens is not spent on those that

deserve it,” he said.

The center will also facilitate an “underground” economy because many

employers who hire these workers pay them money under the table, he said.

Ochoa said staffers will check for proper identification such as green

cards, but Sullivan remains unconvinced.

“I think that anybody that has anything to do with this opening should,

instead, be hanging their head in shame,” he said.