Thursday, August 28, 2008

California stores required to provide facilities for "day laborers"

The Los Angeles City Council has unanimously passed a law requiring big-box home improvement stores to erect shelters with water, bathrooms, and tables for "day laborers." No mention of the day laborers' immigration status.

People who live near Home Depot stores have complained of day laborers drinking beer, urinating in yards or other unseemly behavior.

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a nonprofit group started in Northridge in 2001, supports the new requirements.

"It provides for safe and dignified hiring locations where contingent workers can defend their basic rights. It carefully balances the interests of business, residents, day laborers and their employers," said the group's executive director, Pablo Alvarado.
Over the past few days I've been having some interesting interactions with posters on the Student Doctor Network. I've seen that this is exactly the kind of thing that many liberals get outraged over, claiming that it takes things "too far," but when you try to get them to see that this is a necessary result of their philosophy, they dismiss you. What we need people to understand is that as long as we believe discrimination and inequality are evil, this kind of thing is inevitable.

The article also mentions that Home Depot has no problem with the ordinance, once again proving that large corporations are liberal.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not clear on why you oppose this?

Dr.D said...

Why should any business be required to provide facilities for hangers-on? Perhaps these people ought to be hanging around the local courthouse instead and facilities provided for them there? At Home Depot, Lowes, etc. they are in the way and a nuisance. They would be a reason for me not to patronize the store.

Anonymous said...

Well, the business itself has no problem with it. The business is happy, the workers are happy, and the people living around there are happy. I don't really see an issue here.

Laurel Loflund said...

Living as I do here in Day Laborer Central, I can see both sides of this issue.

The first thing to be considered is the legal status of the day laborers. If they are here illegally, they should be helped to return home, and soon. Period.

Legal immigrants who are day laborers should be treated in a decent manner; there are employment agencies which deal in day labor and provide a reasonably comfortable environment for their employees.

However, the build-a-shelter-for-loiterers-jst-because-they-are -there idea is almost the same as building a little home on the freeway overpass for the homeless guy with his sign so he can be comfortable while panhandling. It just encourages them.

We need to reduce the numbers of immigrants in any event; search for Immigration by the Numbers on Google Video to find out why.

God bless,
Laurel

Dr.D said...

Anonymous still can't see any issue here, so let me refer him back to the original statement:

People who live near Home Depot stores have complained of day laborers drinking beer, urinating in yards or other unseemly behavior.

Now, is that a problem or not? I think it is. It certainly would be for me. Would it not be a problem for an Anonymous person?

Terry Morris said...

Anonymous, the issue is this:

The only thing a liberal dominated society can do to alleviate this kind of thing is to accomodate the inordinate behaviorisms of the perpetrators (we definately can't exercise any kind of discrimination!), which does nothing to stop them from doing the exact same kinds of things elsewhere. So the requirement does not only affect Home Depot. Home Depot apparently doesn't care about the wider, longer term implications of the ordinance, or like you they don't have the foresight to see those implications.

Reminds me of the movie Field of Dreams -- "If you build it, they will urinate there."

Laurel Loflund said...

Yes, folks, they do indeed urinate in peoples' yards and create other kinds of unattractive nuisances.

Yes, I do have a problem with that.

God bless,
Laurel

Unknown said...

In every town in America, teenagers - both male and female - hang around (i.e., "loiter") in public places, drink beer and urinate outdoors, but they seem to be invisible because they are mainly blond and blue-eyed. Saying that providing a dignified shelter for these hard-working and desperate human beings "only encourages them" is like saying that Social Security only encourages people to get old. Human beings who are suffering poverty and persecution will always flock to America's shores - but most of us were lucky enough to come here when those shores still held open arms. If your children were starving you would not consider the legality of whatever actions you needed to take to feed them, so why do you demand that others do? Because they look different than you? "Give me your tired, your hungry, your poor..."

Terry Morris said...

Marianne wrote:

If your children were starving you would not consider the legality of whatever actions you needed to take to feed them, so why do you demand that others do?

Speak for yourself, Marianne. I personally would consider the legality (as well as the morality) of whatever actions I need to take to feed my children. I would never sell cocaine to support my family, as an example, but I guess you would.

By the way, how many of these illegal immigrants do you have living in your house?

Unknown said...

Equating selling cocaine with seeking sweat-of-the-brow labor at low hourly wages reveals much anger. All human beings have a natural instinct - to die if necessary - to make sure that their children have enough to eat. Try sitting down for 10 minutes with one of these amazing human beings and hearing their personal story. I assure you it will change your mind and your heart. I and many others have done so, and it is a life-altering experience. Best wishes.

Terry Morris said...

Marianne,

You make way too many assumptions. I've talked to many, many of these people, and they do nothing but convince me, in the main, that they do not belong here; that they are incompatible with our society. I very highly doubt you've done the same.

Hermes said...

Marianne's posts represent the height of liberal delusion. It's virtually impossible to have a rational discussion with such people. Loitering teenagers in America are mainly blond and blue-eyed? Where are we, Sweden? I'm as white as they come, but even I have brown hair. Also, I haven't seen anybody on this blog defending loitering by teenagers or anyone else. Loitering is slovenly behavior and ought not to be tolerated; in fact, it wasn't tolerated in America in the past, thanks to anti-loitering laws, which liberals decided were a violation of people's freedom and got courts to strike them down.

On a different note, I don't think it's good for America to have day laborers, whether they're legal or illegal. Any economy which makes extensive use of day laborers smacks too much of the third world, and goes against the American tradition of having a strong middle class. Any jobs being filled by day laborers, for example construction jobs which allow developers to build large and/or luxurious houses for cheap, shouldn't exist in the first place, in part precisely because employers should have to hire American workers in the absence of third-world immigrants to underbid them.

Dr.D said...

In most cases, the whole idea of the day laborer is that he is paid in cash, with no taxes taken out, no Social Security, etc. so that he is essentially operating under the radar of the legal system. This is contrary to the well being of our entire country. We need to be rid of these people.

Terry Morris said...

Well, all of my children are blonde and blue eyed. But they keep their rear ends parked at the house at night where they belong ... don't ya know.

I don't need any laws to force me to keep them at home, I just do. But Marianne wouldn't understand.

Laurel Loflund said...

The White kids Marianne describes as "loitering" typically hang out in malls, and much as I rack my brain, I can't remember seeing White kids urinating in public in a mall. Shame factor, you know...

I've talked with day laborers; hard lives back home and here for sure. Personally, however, I vote for them fixing their "homes," whichever third world hellholes they come from, rather than ruining ours.

Marianne, God bless you and be sure to put an addition on your home so you can offer these poor, marginalized workers an adequate place to live.

Enjoy,
Laurel

Terry Morris said...

Seriously I sometimes entertain notions that the Mariannes of the world should have to house some of these people for an extended period of time. They'd change their tune quick, fast, and in a hurry. But I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy, so you're safe Marianne. :-)

Vanishing American said...

'Marianne' repeats most of the usual liberal cliches about the illegals, such as 'hard-working, desperate' and she repeats the usual lines about 'poverty and persecution.'

These ideas go unchallenged 99 percent of the time.
I wonder if Marianne has any evidence whatsoever that any of the illegals are persecuted in their homelands. Most of them make trips home now and then over the holidays, for example. If they were subject to persecution at home, they would not be going to and fro so freely.
As to the poverty part, sure, they are poor, like most of the Third World. Billions of people, in fact. Now, how are Americans, as a small percentage of the world's population, supposed to be able to accommodate and take care of every hard-luck case in the world, which is essentially what all liberals propose that we do? Our money and resources are finite, despite what most liberals seem to believe.
What happens when we reach a critical mass of the poor and needy in proportion to the productive citizens of this country?

Latin America has plenty of resources and room to provide for their own people. How are we responsible for everybody else's poor, who incidentally bring their improvident ways here with them?

Lastly, Marianne doesn't disappoint: she repeats Emma Lazarus's infamous lines from the Statue of Liberty, about 'give me your tired, your poor'. Well, those lines from a tacked-on poem hardly constitute Holy Writ. They are not words from our Founding Documents, and as such they are not binding on us.
And I second the suggestion made by others that Marianne should live her ideals and house as many illegals as she can fit into her dwelling. Since they are hard-working and noble, they will enhance and enrich her life, no doubt.
-VA

Terry Morris said...

VA wrote:

I wonder if Marianne has any evidence whatsoever that any of the illegals are persecuted in their homelands.

Of course she has, VA, didn't you read her post where she says that the rest of us would have our minds changed and our hearts softened by simply sitting down with these amazing human beings for ten minutes?

I have news for Marianne, I work around these individuals very frequently, and have had many lengthy discussions with them, as well as closely observed their mannerisms and so forth. And as I said, they don't belong here, period.

Even so, they're not the worst of the lot in my opinion. The unethical business people who hire them and advocate their staying here are worse. I recently testified as an expert witness in a case involving illegal second-rate Mexican labor. While Marianne may think that their "hard work" makes them worthy of being here, I can tell you that along with it they have virtually no standards. In other words, while some of them work hard, their workmanship is generally very poor. But to the unethical business people that hire them, quality of workmanship takes second place to speed. Also, because of who they are and where they come from, they're not afraid to tackle anything; any job. This is the reason they've moved into virtually all facets of the construction industry. To Mexicans knowledge of a given profession is way down on their list of priorities.

Laurel Loflund said...

Not only do these hard-working immigrants go back to visit family in their homelands at the holidays, they pull their children out of school for the trek, which often runs long enough so that the children miss an extra two or three weeks of school in addition to the holiday week or two.

Of course, the teacher is supposed to make certain they catch up once they arrive back in the classroom, full of tales of the good times they had back in their homeland...

Pure persecution, I tell you! Nothing like a four week party to make you feel persecuted/hungover, whichever comes first.

God bless,
Laurel

Anonymous said...

You people are really a breath of fresh air. Wish I had found this place long ago.