Coffee, Food, and Maybe a Job

Since it opened two years ago, the city-operated day-laborer hiring center in North Hollywood has had its share of troubles.

It has been opposed by its neighbors, initially ignored by employers and investigated when its operators were accused of accepting bribes.

But the center has survived, attracting between 100 and 125 workers each day. And as the program has gained popularity among employers, the number of people who find work at the site has increased from about 13% when the program began in June, 1990, to 33% in April of this year.

The site, a gravel-covered lot between an adult bookstore and a tire shop on Sherman Way near Lankershim Boulevard, is one of two day-laborer hiring centers operated by the city’s Community Development Department. As with the other site in the Harbor City area, the office aims to provide a safer, more organized alternative to looking for work on the streets.

Day laborers who regularly use the North Hollywood location say that looking for work on street corners around the San Fernando Valley means running the risk of being victimized by unscrupulous employers who refuse to pay them and thugs who rob them.

But for those who use the hiring site, the biggest risk is that they will find no work and spend the day drinking coffee and playing dominoes on outdoor picnic tables.

“Looking for work on the streets is not safe,” said Salvador Pulido, 29, who has come to the hiring site regularly for about a year. “But the only enemy here is unemployment.”

The city-run hiring centers have been so successful that the Los Angeles City Council has already approved funding for two additional sites in the council districts of Marvin Braude and Nate Holden. But budget-conscious city officials said they have yet to find sites for the two new centers that the city can use free of charge.

The North Hollywood center is on land owned by the city’s Department of Water and Power, and the Harbor City center is at a state park.

The North Hollywood site came under scrutiny in April, when Councilman Mike Hernandez said he had heard “rumors on the streets” about bribery there. But according to an aide to Councilman Ernani Bernardi, whose district includes the hiring office, a Community Development Department investigation found no evidence that operators were taking bribes from day laborers.

Hernandez, who said he raised the issue to make sure that site operators were not taking advantage of day workers, has since said that he too has been unable to find evidence of bribery there. But he said he will keep a lookout for such abuses.

“My concern was that the program is operating the way it’s supposed to,” he said.

Employers using the program choose workers through a lottery system and negotiate wages ahead of time, usually at a minimum of $5 an hour. This reduces potential conflict between workers and employers but also serves to draw laborers away from the street, where merchants and residents complain about their sometimes unruly and noisy behavior.

At the sites, the laborers, mostly Latino men, can get English lessons, food donated by local churches and legal counseling on immigration and wage issues.

The laborers, some of whom come to North Hollywood from as far away as downtown Los Angeles, begin to gather at the site about 6 a.m. Free coffee and pastries are provided by the city.

Upon their arrival, the men fill out questionnaires, giving their names and skills, such as painting, carpentry or gardening. They are then given up to three numbered tickets, one for each skill. A matching ticket is then placed in a plastic jar labeled painter, carpenter or gardener. When an employer arrives looking for someone who can paint, a ticket is drawn from the appropriate jar and the number is read aloud.

Many of the men said the skill in greatest demand is the ability to speak English. They say the few English-speaking day laborers work about twice as often as those who don’t speak the language.

But timing plays a major role in how the workers fare.

“Everything here depends on your luck,” said Pulido, who got a job moving furniture after waiting 2 1/2 hours on a recent morning.

As they wait, the men play checkers and dominoes and talk about the lucky few who have found permanent jobs through the hiring site.

One man has planted a garden of corn and squash on a portion of the site. Every morning he weeds and waters it as he waits for a job.

Jose Munoz, who has used the program regularly for more than a year, said he stopped hanging around street corners because he often found himself standing next to someone with a pocket full of narcotics, trying to make drug transactions on the same corner.

“The people here only want to work. On the street, you are mixed in with people who want to sell drugs. . . . Here, there is order.”

Indeed, on the wall of the hiring center’s temporary office is a list of rules that day laborers must abide by or face being banned from the program for three to 30 days, depending on the offense.

Among other things, they are prohibited from drinking alcohol, selling or using drugs, gambling, making rude comments to passing women, littering and urinating in public. It is also against the rules for a day laborer to approach or talk to a potential employer until he has been chosen through the raffle.

Although the rules are enforced by the operators, they were established with the consensus of laborers who regularly use the office.

Before the center was established, some nearby merchants worried that laborers would litter the block and loiter around the adjacent adult bookstore, said Los Angeles Police Capt. Chuck Labrow. But such problems have not materialized, he said.

Several laborers laughed at the idea that bribes were being offered to center operators.

“We don’t make enough money to offer bribes,” said one. “We make about $40 a day, if we are lucky. How much can we offer?”

Others suggested that the rumors about bribes were thought up by laborers who failed to find work there.

But despite the presence of the North Hollywood center, a handful of men continue to gather in front of a nearby lumberyard on Lankershim Boulevard, hoping for work.

Luis Escobedo, a counselor whose job it is to persuade laborers on city streets to use the center, said there will always be “mavericks” who refuse because of the center’s strict rules and a distrust for government-sponsored programs.

“But I’ll tell you, if this center wasn’t here, they would all be on the streets, that is for sure,” he said.