Dubya. *sigh*
it was bad enough when he said it
Now? Look who’s taken up the refrain:
AGOURA HILLS, Calif.—The driver of a black Honda thought he would quickly enlist some guys to load furniture and boxes onto a truck—until he heard the men wanted $15 an hour. “What? You don’t even have papers,” the driver told a clutch of Latino day laborers clustered around his car earlier this week. But they stood firm.
“We do hard jobs other people won’t do,” Luis Cap, a Guatemalan, told the man behind the wheel...
Hey, Mister in the Black Honda; try the high school football team.
Three months ago, about 120 immigrants who solicit work along a sun-drenched road ...decided among themselves to only accept work for a minimum hourly wage of $15—about $2.50 higher than the previous, informal rate.
...Steering this initiative is [Pablo Alvarado, national coordinator of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, who supervised the workers’ roadside vote.], a former undocumented immigrant determined to prepare this diffuse underground work force for a role in the political debate over immigration. “Organizing immigrants and other low-wage workers can improve conditions for all workers,” says Mr. Alvarado, 38
...Last month, the Laborers’ International Union of North America, which represents construction workers, announced it would collaborate with Mr. Alvarado’s network to create hiring sites, lobby for immigration reform and protect day laborers’ rights.
“Employers abuse immigrant workers because of their status and bring down wages for everyone,” says Yanira Merino, the union’s immigration coordinator. “They can less easily manipulate organized workers."
Yeah.... They can manipulate workers…
Mr. Alvarado and his staff have also been holding teach-ins to ensure that the day laborers stay abreast of the bills and the debate over the issue of immigration. On a recent Saturday in Los Angeles, about 70 men gave up a day’s work for a U.S. civics lesson. In Spanish, Mr. Alvarado engaged the group of men with paint-splattered trousers and sawdust under their nails in a discussion about the branches of government, the two main political parties and immigration legislation. A similar four-hour lesson took place in several U.S. cities.
Stoo
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