Day laborers hold national conference

Day laborers—jornaleros—from 16 states, together with other immigrant rights activists, met at Hofstra University on Long Island from July 27-31 for a conference on the current conditions and struggles of these oppressed workers in the United States.

Immigrants are reaching out to other workers.

Participants traveled from as far away as California and Texas, as well as Mary land, New Jersey and New York.

The conference assembled at different locations throughout the weekend.

Buses carried conference participants to a protest in Farmingville, L.I., which has become the site and symbol of both racism and resistance for the U.S. day laborer movement.

Because Farmingville has become a symbol of the crisis for jornaleros in the U.S., the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON), headquartered in California, organized this year’s national conference on Long Island.

On the evening of July 28 the normally hushed streets of Farmingville resounded with the voices of hundreds of day laborers and other activists chanting “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” (“The people united will never be defeated!”)

Conference participants also traveled to New York City, suburban Westchester County and Brookhaven in Suffolk County.

Local day laborers charge that officials from the Long Island town of Brookhaven have conspired against jornaleros—throwing them out of their homes and tolerating firebombing and other violent acts of racism.

As the rallying activists filled up the parking lot of Suffolk County headquarters, they sang and chanted to keep up the fighting spirit. They sent a message to County Supervisor Steve Levy, who has reportedly spearheaded recent racist attacks on the workers: “Escucha! Estamos en la lucha!” (“Listen! We are in the struggle!”)

Struggle and unity

The programs and cultural events of the conference at Hofstra focused on struggle and unity.

Jornaleros number in the hundreds of thousands across the United States. In some states, like Maryland, these day laborers have won legal “shape-up” sites—where they wait for day job assignments—and cultural centers. Their struggle has also won financial support from the state.

Jornaleros in Los Angeles have made the city provide nine shape-up centers which also provide English-language and computer classes, and other services. “One thing that happens here is that workers stand tall, they look at people face to face as equals, not seeking their permission, not as oppressed people or men begging for jobs but as persons with pride,” said Pablo Alvarado, national coordinator of NDLON. “Because you can’t intimidate people who have pride.”

The jornaleros and their supporters from Austin, Texas, perform guerrilla theater to teach workers how to negotiate for their own safety and benefit.

José Zorraquín from Seattle came from Casa Latina. “A few weeks ago, the state gave us a van to get people to jobs, for a ride share program.” The workers organized to get this van.

In contrast, some workers came to the conference from states where there is abso lutely no support for day laborers. During the Casa Maryland workshop, which presented a radical method of teaching Eng lish and organizing, Juan from Virginia noted that in his town workers were not able to have English classes. Nor were they able to organize for a safe and legal gathering site with bathrooms, heat or electricity.

Edilberto, a worker from a legal but under-funded shape-up site in Freeport, N.Y., stressed that an organization like NDLON could help provide unity and pressure to get more local and state support.

Zorraquín agreed. “I learned at this conference that the people who are the most hurt are those who don’t have a leader on their esquina [corner]. They need to be organized in unity with other day laborers from all over the U.S. We are not terrorists, we are not violent; all we want is work. We are not taking jobs, Latin@s are here to work for their families.”

Racism raised its head as the conference moved around the metropolitan area. “We encountered racism on the streets of Farmingville when we were protesting. When we were walking, you could feel the coldness of racist people in that town. This woman on the corner, saying, ‘Go home, don’t be bothering us,’” Zorraquín said.

“Then when we went to Westchester to Sarah Lawrence College, racists came to disrupt the meeting.”

But the activists were undaunted. As they began their cultural evening with the haunting song “Comandante Che Gue vara,” Faustino Morales, who is supporting five children back in Mexico, said this conference “served as a unifier and provided critical understanding from inside the centers of work for the jornaleros.”

Morales, who has an adult lifetime of political organizing, concluded, “The most important thing is for the jornaleros to be unified. But we have to be unified with African Americans and other members of the U.S. working class.”