Long Waits for Short Jobs : Employment: Day laborers gather at a city-sponsored site at Harbor Regional Park, hoping against hope for a few days--or hours--of work. Most of those who congregate are legal residents.

Edmundo Lugo’s white Nikes dance this crisp morning as he tries to keep warm. His hands burrowed into the pockets of his jeans, he periodically eyes the passing pickup trucks, wondering when, and if, he will be hired.

After waiting more than three hours in the parking lot of Harbor City’s Harbor Regional Park, a site designated by the City of Los Angeles for a day laborer program, he knows that the chances of being hired this day are slim. Still, he remains upbeat, though cold. His cotton-lined denim jacket is buttoned as high as it can go. His collar is turned up. And shortly after 10 a.m., he can still see his breath as he exhales.

Lugo, a six-year Army veteran and current member of the National Guard, prides himself on his specialty trades: sheet metal and metal machinery.

“But when (employers) come here I’m a handyman,” he says.

His only desire is to latch onto a job--any job that will enable him to provide for his wife and three children in Los Angeles.

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Although the city-sponsored program has managed to give order to the plight of day laborers--and simultaneously to appease some area merchants who complain that loitering laborers hurt business--neither side’s expectations have been fulfilled completely. Throngs of men still congregate on some street corners as merchants open their shops, and laborers who keep to the designated pickup site spend more time waiting than working.

Still, advocates say this effort to help day laborers is a beginning.

Established in October, 1989, the Harbor City pickup site was the first opened in Los Angeles to respond to the growing number of men congregating on street corners looking for work.

Businessmen had long complained about the men hanging out in front of their shops, waving down cars, sometimes littering. The program was begun to provide a spot where these workers could gather--safely--regardless of their immigration status.

“The site isn’t there as an employment agency,” said Danny Rosas, city coordinator of the Day Laborer Program. “It’s there as a public safety measure.”

Rosas estimated that 75% of those who frequent the site are legal residents--an indication that the sour economy is pushing more people to the street in search of jobs. Of the 140 people who come to the site daily, he said, only about 25% are hired.

The program, coordinated by the City of Los Angeles using federal funds, also has a North Hollywood location. The operational costs for the two sites and the seven-member staff are $250,000 annually.

To ensure fairness, organizers set up a lottery system forcing workers to wait their turns when employers come looking for help. Organizers bring in people to teach the workers how to keep logbooks of dates and times worked and also offer basic English courses.

The program attracts scores of men to the site every day except Sunday--some begin arriving as early as 6 a.m. and come from as far away as Montebello--in hopes of getting hired for a day.

Within a couple of hours, the crowd becomes an anxious 100-man army, descending on vehicles as they enter the lot, as if they are hoping to somehow sway the outcome of the impending lottery selection.

Though Lugo said he works two or three days most weeks, on days when he’s not picked up, he may wait up to six hours before leaving. Some laborers spend their week in the parking lot simply waiting. But it’s still better than the street corners, they insist.

“There’s chaos on the corners,” says Jose Ramirez, a 37-year-old plumber and gardener who works two or three days a week to support his wife and four children in Guatemala. “There’s no order.”

Rosas said the workers benefit from a more orderly system. When laborers are hired on street corners, he said, it is not uncommon for them to be abused by their employers--often underpaid, or not paid at all.

In some cases, he said, employers tell laborers: “ ‘I’ve got to go to the bank. I’ll be right back.’ And then they never return.” In other instances, Rosas said, laborers are promised pay at week’s end, only to be stranded on Friday.

“The honest employer will come to our site,” he said.

Besides providing an orderly hiring system, the program gives workers some skills to protect themselves, said Pat Treadwell, Wilmington field supervisor for Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores.

Along with learning to keep a log and having a chance to take English classes, Treadwell said, those who frequent the site can also attend mobile health clinics and receive free groceries and hot meals.

“I tried to teach them the parts of the body,” said English instructor Francisco Briones, “but all they want to know are the tools.”

Briones, a former day laborer himself, volunteered his efforts in the initial stages of the program because he had experienced the same frustration in getting hired when he came to the United States a decade ago.

Lured by his brother to visit Disneyland in 1982, Briones said he turned a two-week stay into two years. Despite having a machinist’s job with his parents’ company in Mexico City, he said he opted to take various labor jobs here because of the low salaries at home.

Today, he is an outreach coordinator for the city, visiting the same street corners on which he once waited. He tries to entice laborers to use the site.

Most laborers “feel safer with this program,” Briones said.

However, many day laborers still opt to try their luck on the street, to the dismay of many merchants.

Ping Own, owner of Ping’s Auto Service at President Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway, said as many as 20 men will occupy the corner in front of his shop on any given day. He said the number of laborers out front has increased, perhaps because of the bad economy.

Own is sympathetic to the plight of the day workers because he too was once an immigrant, coming to Los Angeles from Taiwan in 1976.

“I was treated very bad when I came to this country,” he said. “They’ve got to make a living. I can understand that, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask for them to go to the site.”

“It’s one hell of a mess,” said Ed Carlson, a 35-year resident of Harbor City who lives five blocks north of Own’s shop. “It’s a hard situation. I don’t think anyone has an answer to it. I really don’t.”

Joeann Valle, executive director of the Harbor City/Harbor Gateway Chamber of Commerce, said the city is trying to do everything possible to get the day workers to use the designated job site.

“These are men who are trying to get a buck to put milk on the table,” Valle said. “It would really be horrifying if it (that site) wasn’t there. . . . There would be that many more men out on the street.”