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.”
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.