Date: August 24, 2006
Class Year: 2006-2007
Project Title: Day Laborer Resource Program
Project Leader Name(s): David Foster
Civic Concern Addressed By Project Vision:
A large number of construction, agricultural, landscaping, other small businesses and home improvement do-it-yourselfers rely upon the hiring of the county’s large number of day laborers. The concern is that the hiring process is often chaotic and disruptive to the local businesses where workers currently congregate. The complete lack of oversight leaves both workers, and those hiring them, at risk of unfair practices and a mismatch between skills and the work to be done.
Project Vision:
As a community that cares about all of its residents Santa Cruz County will develop a program supportive of its day laborers. Through the program day laborers will find recognition of the skills that they offer. An improved hiring program will provide an orderly and respectful process increasing the opportunities for workers to find short and long-term work that best utilizes their skills.
Team Size Anticipated:
Maybe 12 people
Talents, Knowledge, Insights Needed:
- Immigration and employment law background
- Spanish language skills
- Understanding of the day labor needs in the County
- Community organizing skills
- Police/public safety insight
- Insights of those currently seeking work as day laborers
Resources Needed:
- Hiring sites would need to be identified and donated (leased) for this use during certain hours each day.
- Portable bathrooms and benches, etc. would need to be provided and maintained
- Organizing and on-site staff would need to be hired
Incentives or Benefits of Working on this Project:
- Get to know local businesses
- Get to know our day labor population
- Learn about our existing network of social service providers
- Learn about legal issues related to immigration and day labor employment
- Learn how to facilitate collaboration
- Help many unemployed find meaningful work
- Improve community health and safety at and around the day labor hiring locations.
Network Needs
– Those who will support the accomplishment of the vision outside of the team participants:
- Local businesses that are currently impacted by on-site day labor hiring
- Social service organizations that currently work with and provide services to the day labor population and could operate this program if the program design and funding was made available
- Local businesses that currently hire day laborers
- Local jurisdictions that are tired of ignoring the situation
- Local police departments that currently monitor day labor hiring practices
- Labor Unions that are interested in supporting the program
- Visit a community that has a day labor program already in place
- State Employment Development Department
- Employment and Training Services – Careerworks – Workforce Santa Cruz
Do List
– A short list of anticipated things that will need to be accomplished, understanding that the team will develop the actual action plan:
- Research similar programs in other communities
- Outreach to local businesses currently impacted by day labor hiring
- Research into the legalities of running a program that serves workers that may have problems related to immigration status
- Contact local elected representatives to identify “champions” for the program
- Identify a demonstration site
- Prepare a demonstration program
- Identify a program sponsor
- Prepare a funding plan for the demonstration site.
- Secure initial funding for the demonstration program
Communication
A Yahoo group has been started for this project to make it easier for your group to communicate with each other online. Yahoo groups is a simple place to send emails to everyone in the group at once, to email files or photos to the project page, to add to the group calendar, to easily view the archive of all messages regarding this topic, and more.
Ready to join this group?
First you need to become a member of the group by going to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lscc_daylabor
and clicking on "Join this group!" in the upper right corner. It will ask you to create a Yahoo ID and password. If you use Yahoo already, you can use that ID, otherwise, create a new one.
Yahoo Group information
Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lscc_daylabor
This page contains all of the details about the project and gives you access to all messages, files, photos if you are a member.
Group email address: lscc_daylabor@yahoogroups.com
This is the email address you send to enable everyone in the group to view your emails.
Once you are a member, you can always edit your account by going to the group home page and click on "Edit Membership" to view your options.
