Hitchin a Ride
City to Consider Job Centers for Day Labor (NY Times)
Quickly:
When I was growing up, we had this issue in our hometown. (which is on the far banks of the OTHER Manhattan river) Masses of undocumented immigrants would swarm sections of our local towns in the morning - some were residents, and some were dropoffs - to offer themselves for illegal cheap labor jobs. Construction companies would send cars, pickup trucks, and vans to pick up workers and bring them to jobs where they would work like dogs and be paid a small fraction of the salary for typical unionized positions. It created a crime problem, not only in that they were often the perpetrators but they were also often the victims. Often these workers were abused and harassed by evil local residents. On top of all of this, it was an eyesore - crowds upon crowds of scruffily-dressed manual laborers, blocking sidewalks and creating disorder. It didn’t matter who was doing the congregating; the situation would have been pitiful had it been groups of any peoples, citizens or not. (As it turns out, most citizen immigrants who lived in my local area had proper, upstanding jobs. It was mostly the undocumented masses who pursued the shady jobs.)
I think this is a good move to help eliminate an abuse problem in the center of which undocumented immigrants often find themselves. What remains to be seen is this: will anyone really go for this, or will they just be a little less obvious (and a little more sneaky) about what they’re doing?
(Knowing the nature of many of these undocumented immigrants, most of them here because they already took “shortcuts” to get here in spite of our immigration laws, I’d say… it won’t do a thing, really. It’ll probably force the shady construction labor market underground. They’ll find a way to offer themselves under everyone’s radar, and the slimy construction bosses will just keep picking them up. Oh, if only the idea could work out…)