|
|
San
Lucas Workers Center leader Julio Vega has had his share of bizarre
and frightening experiences in his ten years of working in the Chicago
day labor industry. But one day in 1999 sticks out in his memory.
I was riding with
some other workers in one drivers van for a couple of days, Vega
recounts. He seemed always to be drunk and speeding. This particular
day he almost hit another car on the expressway. I told him to slow
down or I would flag down the police. Instead of slowing down,
the driver reached below his seat and pulled up a semi-automatic
pistol. He said to me, This if for you and for the police. He
said this with a really weird smile.
The day labor agency
Vega was working for was Rons Temporary Labor.. In 2002, after
two years of being repeatedly targeted by the San Lucas Workers
Center, Rons closed its North Avenue location in Humboldt Park
. At the time, Rons threatened to leave the city when the San Lucas
pushed the passage of the City of Chicago s day labor ordinance.
Instead, they simply moved across town where they thought they would
be safe from organizing pressure.
No
Escape: The New Day Labor Collaboration
Enter the new Day Laborer Collaboration, a citywide network of six
organizations organized by the San Lucas Workers Center. The new
Rons location sits squarely between Pilsen, where collaboration
member St. Pius is located, and Little Village, where another collaborator,
the Chicago Worker Center is based.
They
moved into a vise, says Felipa Mena of the Chicago Workers Center.
In the late spring the San Lucas Workers Center and its collaborators
began receiving repeated complaints about overloaded, costly vans
coming out of Rons. Twelve or more day laborers were being piled
into vans made for eight people. Day laborers were also being illegally
charged for transportation fees, with the money often coming straight
out of their paychecks. San Lucas also learned that Rons did not
have a day labor agency license to operate.
On July 29, San Lucas
led 100 workers and community supporters from the collaboration
in direct action and a press conference to highlight Rons violations
of the city ordinance. They demanded that Rons show proof that
the private vans it was referring workers to for transportation
carried public passenger licenses. Under the new Chicago day labor
ordinance, agencies must refer workers only to free or publicly
licensed vans.
The group occupied
the dispatch room and San Lucas leader Randy Smith called Rons
owner, Ron Michelon on the phone. Michelon was so startled to hear
from a San Lucas leader on his cell phone that he confessed that
all the vans were privately owned by him, but claimed that they
were all properly licensed. That included conversion vans that obviously
had not been adapted for commercial use. Meanwhile, ramshackle vans
kept pulling up to the office during the action and the subsequent
press conference. Television cameras were there to catch it all
for the news that evening.
The July 29 hit was
the first hit for San Lucas Worker Center outside of its Humboldt
Park turf and showed how day laborers could use the collaboration
to project organizing power across Chicago .
The
Hot Spot System of Enforcement
At
the press conference San Lucas leader Mario Johnson leader explained
that the first task of the new collaboration is to enforce the day
labor ordinance.
We
said from the get-go we would not accept a paper ordinance. We made
this law and were dead-serious about it. This organization gives
us the power to force the city and the agencies, wherever they try
to run to, take it seriously, too.
To
do that, worker-leaders announced a new system of reporting violations
and prompting city investigations. Bright-orange hot spot complaint
cards, pre-addressed to City Hall, are being collected by the Day
Labor Collaboration. The point is to systematize complaints on day
labor agency abuses and organize them for political pressure on
enforcement. The Hot Spot cards have the advantage of enabling the
organizing campaign to guide the enforcement. Both workers and community
members may fill out the card. Workers and other community members
have already signed almost one hundred complaint cards against Rons.
A few days after the
hit San Lucas and Collaboration leaders presented the Hot Spot
cards from Rons to local alderman, Danny Solis. Solis agreed to
demand the city close Rons until the agency cleans up. Alderman
Solis also agreed to accompany Rons workers to meet with City inspectors
on Aug. 29. One question that leaders will put to the city is how
Rons could operate for a full year without a license. Solis has
also agreed to endorse the Collaborations Sep. 25 Pilsen Community
Forum on Day Labor, and to invite Congressman Gutierrez, who has
sponsored a national day labor bill.
The Hot Spot cards
are especially useful because they can be filled not only by community
members and current workers, but also by the many ex-workers from
agencies like Rons. For every one worker currently employed by
Rons, the Collaboration is finding three or four who were shut
out of the agency because they would not give up rights. A lot
of people are disqualified for simply refusing to be walked on,
says veteran San Lucas leader Randy Smith.
San Lucas is using
both the organizing reach of the new Collaboration and the Hot
Spot system to hammer agencies and pressure enforcement officials.
But leaders see this all as prelude to engage the real
power in the system - the client companies that contract to the
agencies for workers. Beyond their political and media uses, the
Hot Spot cards help to set up a dramatic public record on targeted
agencies. That record can then be used to persuade companies to
drop Hot Spot agencies and move work to agencies that abide by
community standards.
Its not going to
be just companies and agencies talking anymore; were going to have
a voice, said San Lucas member Codey Jones.
Other members include
St. Pius in Pilsen, the Chicago Workers Center in Little Village,
Erie House in West Town , South Austin Coalition Community Council,
and the Center for Community and Labor Research, which provides
expert industry analysis to guide the organizing.
|
|
|
