All in a day’s work

Andrew Glazer

He waited for hours in the dry summer heat for a job, his backpack beside

him stuffed with knee pads, protective goggles and a transistor radio.

Each time a truck pulled into the parking lot of the Costa Mesa Job

Center, where roughly two dozen other day laborers chatted and read,

48-year-old Apolinar Diaz raised a small, crumpled, blue scrap of paper

printed with the number 84 in the air. The 83 men in line before him

would have to be hired before he would have any chance to work.

“If I don’t work, I don’t eat,” Diaz said in his native Spanish. He

squinted, deepening the wrinkles on his forehead. “Me and the others are

willing to do the dirtiest, most dangerous work for very little money. We

won’t say no.”

The job center -- a city-sponsored kiosk on Placentia Avenue where day

laborers can legally solicit carpentry, moving, gardening and house

painting jobs for $5.75 to $15 dollars an hour -- is open daily from 6

a.m. to 2 p.m.

The City Council will discuss whether to close the center at 11 a.m. each

morning and entirely on Sundays at its budget meeting Monday. Doing so

would save the city an estimated $32,000 annually.

The move would restore the center to its original hours, which the

council expanded in January. A new Home Depot store opened on Harbor

Boulevard and the council anticipated day laborers seeking work from

shopping contractors would flock to it and intimidate customers.

Another Home Depot just across the Santa Ana city border on Harbor

Boulevard experienced such problems.

“In my experience, there hasn’t been a day laborer problem in Costa Mesa,

so we should cut back hours,” said City Councilman Joe Erickson.

But everyone waiting for work at the job center Thursday -- and the two

city employees who supervise its operation -- said the city would

preclude dozens of workers from finding work each day if it cut the

center’s hours.

“We’ll be out on the corners, parks and in 7-Elevens,” said Richard

Grisham, a day laborer who has sought work at the center for more than 12

years. “I don’t think the council wants that.”

Each morning, nearly 200 men are lined up at the job center by 6 a.m.

Those in front of the line get the first choice of jobs. Many arrived

hours earlier to ensure employment.

On Thursday, between 11 a.m. and noon, at least seven employers hired

more than 15 laborers.

“It wouldn’t be fair to the people searching for work or the workers if

the city cut back on hours,” said Jovita Guthrie, who helps run the

center.

City officials said they would wait to see if more day laborers have been

frequenting the center since January before recommending that the council

reduce its hours.

But Diaz, who after eight years of seeking work at the center has become

an unofficial leader and spokesman for the workers, wants the council to

listen to the laborers -- who are also constituents.

“Do it for us and do it for the people who want cheap, quality labor,” he

said. “We provide a service. We are important. We live in Costa Mesa.”