The latest on day labor in Brewster

September

There’s a long, long history of debate over what to do about day laborers congregating along Brewster’s Main Street. The current mayor says he’d be in favor of designating a specific hiring site somewhere in the village (as Mount Kisco, Ossining, Port Chester and other communities have done), but he opposes the use of taxpayer money to create one.

brewster The latest little development in this saga comes from officials in the surrounding town of Southeast, where Supervisor Michael Rights and Councilman Dwight Yee ran on a platform of fighting problems they attribute to illegal immigration and day labor. After proposing an all-out sidewalk hiring ban, they pared that down to a resolution to put up a no-trespass sign at 1 Main St., across from the Metro-North station. Yee had said, “I want to at least chase them away from this little oasis and protect the town properties in the village.”

The resolution failed, 3-2, because of civil rights concerns on the town board, Marcela Rojas reports.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 4:34 pm by Leah Rae.
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One Response to “The latest on day labor in Brewster”

Ed Kowalski October 4th, 2009 at 7:17 am
An Open letter to the Mayor of the Village of Brewster:

Mayor,

Plase allow me to summarize why your support of a day laborer center is misdirected.

DAY LABOR CENTERS IGNORE RULES AGAINST ILLEGAL WORKERS

The reason that day labor hiring sites should not be tolerated by local governments is that they ignore the issue of the work status of the worker, thus facilitating illegal immigration. The center managers argue that it is the responsibility of the employers, not them, to verify the work eligibility of the employee hired. While this may be technically correct, if there is local government support for a hiring site, it is reasonable for a prospective employer to assume that the worker who is made available through the site is legally entitled to work. Thus, the hiring centers may not only facilitate the employment of unauthorized workers, they may also encourage the employer of the day laborer to break the law against hiring illegal aliens.
HIRING ILLEGAL ALIENS AT A DAY LABOR CENTER IS A CRIME

Since the adoption in 1986 of the Immigration Reduction and Control Act (IRCA), it has been illegal for an employer to hire an illegal alien. The IRCA gave rise to a system of document checking by empoyers (the I-9 form) to control against violations.

In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to prohibit the hiring or continued employment of an unauthorized alien. Violation of this law involves the felony of concealing, harboring, and shielding illegal aliens from detection and is demonstrated when employees lack work authorization documents, are paid in cash, Social Security or federal taxes are not withheld, and the employer fails to pay employer contributions.

DAY LABOR CENTERS DRIVE DOWN WORK CONDITIONS FOR LEGAL WORKERS

All state governments and most, if not all, county governments and large city governments operate labor departments funded by federal and state unemployment trust accounts. Their responsibility is to try to match out-of-work residents (often receiving unemployment benefits) with employers seeking workers. These labor departments assist job placement of legally employable workers. The day labor hiring centers that are currently erupting in areas of large concentrations of illegal aliens circumvent and undermine the taxpayer-funded operation of the government employment offices. Among the screening standards provided by an official placement office is assuring that the employment complies with legal requirements, such as the minimum wage and overtime payments. The employer sanctions provisions of the immigration law specifically provide that workers hired through a state employment agency are to be considered legal workers.

Employers hiring workers from day labor centers often will avoid legal standards, pay less than the minimum wage, fail to withhold salary for taxes, and avoid paying into the unemployment fund and other expenses. Those employers illegally cut the costs of employment and, in the process, decrease the job opportunities for qualified workers who may be unemployed, but who are unwilling to work for cash payments under the table. As a result of this process, the wages that a qualified worker may earn become depressed towards the wages that the illegal workers are willing to accept. The effect of the day labor centers is, therefore, to benefit the illegal alien workers and the employers who are breaking the law in hiring them, while at the same time undercutting the earning potential and opportunities for some of the country’s most needy workers. It also increases the burden on taxpayers because of the cost of general assistance provided to the out-of-work residents.
DAY LABOR CENTERS DEPRESS WORKING STANDARDS

Many of the employers of day laborers are contractors who are working on construction sites. They use day laborers because it offers greater flexibility as the workload fluctuates depending on weather and the economy. Such construction contract work is highly competitive, and unless the contractor is working on a government contract, the cost of wages may determine who wins the contract. In this kind of environment, the contractor who cuts labor costs by suppressing wages has an advantage, something that using illegal workers helps to achieve.

A contractor who is scrupulous about respecting the law and hiring only legal workers may thus be at a comparative disadvantage in competing for a contract. Over time, greater pressure will develop for all competitors to use illegal workers, and the wages that are offered to day laborers may become depressed so far that legal workers are unwilling to take these jobs.

Greg Feere, the head of the Contra Costa (Calif.) Building and Construction Trade Council explains, “What it [the day laborer hiring site] basically does is put a legitimate contractor at a disadvantage. You get non-union contractors who don’t work by the rules, don’t offer worker’s compensation and pay with cash.”

DAY LABOR CENTERS ATTRACT ADDITIONAL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

A day labor hiring center that makes no distinction between legal and illegal workers sends a message to illegal workers that our society does not care whether a worker is legally in the country or is in violation of our immigration law. It also invites other illegal aliens to come and take advantage of the inviting environment.

For example, in New Jersey where several day labor hiring centers have been established, the number of workers seeking to find jobs through these centers has continuously increased so that pressure has been created to establish still additional informal hiring sites. By accommodating this, local governments are creating conditions whereby the population of illegal workers will simply expand and generate further pressures until such time that the demand for such workers is entirely fulfilled, at which time the community is likely to find that it has a large number of unemployed illegal aliens as well as legal residents.

Ed Kowalski
9/11 Families For A Secure America

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