Montgomery County officials yesterday announced the planned opening of a new employment center that will offer a range of services to prospective day laborers.
Just a block from where the new center is scheduled to open by the end of next month in Wheaton, several dozen people, mostly Latino immigrants, congregate each workday behind a paint store on Veirs Mill Road, waiting for employers to show up to hire them.
It is one of many such sites in the Washington area. But in the past year, area businesses have complained about the gatherings. And some workers said the informal system works poorly because they do not get paid fairly for their work in construction, painting, furniture moving and other jobs.
The employment center will be the second in Montgomery. It is intended to match up workers with employers, provide a warm space for workers to wait in winter, and eventually offer English classes and help them achieve citizenship, officials said.
The center "will help hundreds of workers find safe, viable employment, without the risk of being stiffed at the end of that hard day's work," said Montgomery Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D), who spoke yesterday at the dedication ceremony amid dangling wires and exposed heating ducts in the unfinished center.
Day laborer sites have caused tensions recently in other Washington area jurisdictions experiencing rapid growth of Latino immigrants. In Prince William County, police arrested two dozen Latinos who gathered outside a 7-Eleven in October. Some of the men face deportation.
"We're trying to help people find work, learn English and become part of the community," Duncan said. "I think that's a better approach" than making arrests.
The 1,900-square-foot Wheaton office, on the ground floor of the Ambassador apartment building, will be leased by the county for $64,000 a year and run by the nonprofit organization Casa de Maryland. At the advocacy group's other employment center, on University Boulevard in Silver Spring, 150 to 200 people show up needing work each day, said Gustavo Torres, the organization's executive director. Other centers are being planned for Langley Park and Gaithersburg, he said.
"It's an issue that's growing and growing everywhere," Torres said.
Behind the paint store yesterday, among the two dozen men waiting for work, the reaction to the new employment center was mixed. Several said they were grateful for the community support and hoped it would ensure that they were paid fairly. At the Silver Spring office, Casa de Maryland is working on 450 cases of employers not paying day laborers, said Torres.
"The bosses say, 'I'm going to pay you at the end of the week.' You work five days and then they disappear," said a laborer who identified himself as Juan and declined to give his last name. "You have to be careful because there are many abusive employers."
Others were more skeptical. Jose Roberto, 40, who moved to Wheaton from Guatemala last year, said he was afraid of joining any kind of institution.
"This, for me, is really a problem. We are not documented. We are all people without papers," he said. "If we sign up, you never know what immigration [enforcement officials] are going to do."
Casa de Maryland officials said they give each worker an ID card but do not inquire about workers' citizenship status. Both workers and employers can be weeded out of the program due to bad behavior on the job.
It is the responsibility of the employer to verify the legality of employing each person, county officials said.
But the most pressing concern for workers was having no work. In winter, the hundreds of people at the Silver Spring center compete for 20 to 30 jobs a day, Torres said. Washington Cortez, 42, a former lawyer from Ecuador, said he came out nearly every day in December and was hired only twice.
"There's a lot of talent being wasted out here," he said.
When a white Ford van pulled up, a throng of men in parkas and wool caps pressed up against the windows to ask for work. The driver needed two men for a day of painting at $15 an hour. He apologized to the others.
"There's just too many of you," he said.
