Mustachioed and graying, dressed in the uniform of a full-time job he once had, Gonzalo Garcia is out in front of The Home Depot on Lake Worth Road most mornings, and it doesn’t take much to catch his eye.
A braking pickup or the wave of a driver’s hand will send him and several other Hispanic day laborers rushing to the departing vehicle, their eyes bright with the possibility of a day’s work.
Garcia, at 49 a father of four, says he tends to hang back as the younger workers push forward. But his counterparts often run, hoping to be chosen to paint, rip out drywall or lay bricks.
The onslaught, a symptom of the voracious competition for dwindling numbers of day jobs, can be surprising to the unsuspecting, and even frightening.
In recent years, the Hispanic day laborers have become as much a part of the scenery at The Home Depot west of Lake Worth as the fence and hedges, and as more lose full-time jobs in construction or landscaping, their numbers seem to have grown.
The Home Depot is not pleased. Blaming the job seekers for causing accidents and driving away customers, the world’s largest home improvement retailer has been working to discourage them from rushing vehicles in the driveways and trespassing in the parking lot.
But the need for work keeps pushing the men forward, and the result has been an entrenched standoff.
Garcia, an undocumented Guatemalan national who had a regular job in construction until being laid off late last year, said he and the others only want to work and have no other way to find steady pay.
“We’re not here because we want to be here,” he said in Spanish. “We need to be.”
Home Depot at standoff with laborers who swarm customers in bid for work
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/03/08/a1a_homedepot_0309.html?imw=Y
No, temps are a bad workers compensation risk.
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No, Several times, I nearly run over them. They jump in front of my car trying to get a job. Even, if they are legal, I still wouldn’t because that would be encouraging them to do something dangerous. The other reason, is that you know nothing about people you are bringing into your home. They could be scoping out your house to rob it latter.
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Nope. I wouldn’t stand outside of misc office buildings hoping one of them let me in for the day. If they were legal and sitting outside of the unemployment office, then perhaps, but definitely not this way.
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Yes, they are hard working people, that give you a days worth of work, I’d much rather them, than a young adult, their lazy, slow, and accident prone.
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Nope, the reason is most are illegal immigrants. Using them for work only compounds the problem. If no one hires them, then they go away. If you use them, you are contributing to the illegal immigrant problem that is plaguing this country. Go to a temp agency that is reputable.
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I will make him work very hard all day.Than afterwards pull up to subway indicate go get you a $ 5,00 sub and after he enters subway, I will high tail it out of there
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Never. I’ll hire an American and pay a little more.
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No, would not hire them even push my vehicle to the curb, if it stalled in the traffic…Reason is simple since there would be no binding contract between me(employer) and them (employees) there would be no legal bond for them to do job properly & right, as I have seen illegals walk off the jobs they started- half-done. They are most undependable workers there are.Other reason is it would be ILLEGAL to hire them….Sorry Hombreros no trabajo-Volver a sus casas en Monterrey. Adios!…
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I would tell them that they should ask their homeland why they are doing so little to improve their life, forcing them out of their own country into this country.
Plus, it is illegal to hire undocumented people.
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