Workers/28inches/dp1st/mark2nd
By CHRISTOPHER WOODARD
Staff Reporter
At 5:30 a.m., job hopefuls are huddled outside a storefront along a dreary commercial strip in the north San Fernando Valley.
In the past, some of them had good-paying jobs others even say they had successful businesses. But due to hard luck, scrapes with the law, booze, drugs, or all of the above, they’re looking for work this morning at the North Hills office of Labor Ready.
Donna Tharp, branch manager for the day-labor provider, unlocks the door and about two dozen men add their names to a clipboard before many slip out back for a smoke.
“Let me see that thumb,” she says jokingly to one guy who bruised the digit in a recent accident. “I draw the line at kissing boo boos.”
Labor Ready gets requests for a variety of work, much of it construction-related. As calls come in, Tharp checks off the names and hands out work orders, first come, first served.
Given the area’s ever-tightening labor pool, firms increasingly use day laborers to fill in the gaps. And operations like Labor Ready, which check on immigration status and handle other paperwork chores, provide a ready conduit to those workers.
Today, a lucky few head off to their assignments, paperwork clutched in their calloused hands. The rest sit in white-plastic lawn chairs, waiting for work and watching the latest developments from Kosovo on a television set at the office.
“A lot of these guys just got out of jail. Their girlfriends left them. They’ve got no family to back ’em up. A lot of them are living on the street,” day laborer Kenneth Tolliver says as he looks over the stragglers. “It’s just hard to get back up once you’re down.”
Tolliver should know. The 40-year-old Reseda man had been working for Labor Ready when he was arrested recently for driving with a suspended license. The arrest and consequent jail time cost him what was shaping up to be a permanent job with a construction company.
Tolliver claims a judge took away his license as punishment for being $95,000 in arrears in support payments for his six children. Trouble is, Tolliver has been trying to make back payments without having the benefit of a driver’s license during his job search.
“They want me to pay $2,500 a month (in child support), but I’m only making $6 an hour,” says Tolliver, wearing a scuffed-up letterman’s jacket and a key chain around his neck that says, “I Love Jesus.”
“I’m not a deadbeat dad,” he says. “I love my kids. I’m not the man you might think I am. I just don’t have the money.”
Today, Tharp hands him a work order to clean up a construction site. After taxes, Tolliver figures he will make about $45.
Labor Ready pays unskilled laborers $6 an hour with vouchers redeemable in cash at the end of the day from an on-site ATM machine. Carpenters, electricians, plumbers and welders can make $8 to $16 an hour, depending on their experience. The company charges businesses $12 to $28 an hour.
John Sims, 47, says he started searching for work at Labor Ready after a 24-month stint in state prison on an assault conviction. Sims, a friendly, forthright, self-described “old hippie,” doesn’t blanch at explaining his record.
“This roommate I was living with stabbed me. I had this knife sticking out of my back. It wasn’t enough to kill me I put him in the hospital pretty bad,” says Sims, smiling through crooked teeth.
Sims says he owned his own roofing company in the late ’80s and pulled down $120 or more a day. But in the course of just four months, he says he went through a divorce, had his belongings sold by the IRS to cover $25,000 in back taxes, and went to prison for violating a child custody agreement.
“I lost everything I worked 20 years building. This,” he says, looking around Labor Ready, “is money. It’s survival.” Today, Sims heads out for a job cleaning up an office construction site.
Alvin Brown is what Labor Ready calls a “premium worker,” someone who has proven himself to be hard-working and reliable. He gets first crack at the best jobs. Currently, he’s doing painting work at a Granada Hills hospital, where he hopes to land a permanent position.
“I can do drywall, cashiering, plumbing. I’m a jack-of-all-trades and good at it,” says the stocky, 43-year-old Brown.
He says he had his own painting business, but lost his tools when he left them unattended to go back East for a few weeks. If there’s more to the story, Brown doesn’t care to elaborate.
“This is the next best thing to a full-time job,” says Brown. “They treat me good, and give me as much money as they can.”
At 61, Dale Parenteau is easily the oldest man here. He was working at a Burbank cigarette stand when he was unceremoniously fired after his boss folded the business.
“Some say I’m too old for hard work, but I say send me out and see what I can do,’ says Parenteau, who most recently helped a printer collate orders. “I can keep up with the younger guys.”
Tharp concedes that she works with a tough bunch, but says that the workers treat her with respect. “Not once since I’ve worked here have I felt threatened,” she says.
The key to maintaining that respect is strict enforcement of company rules including, of course, no drugs or alcohol on the job.
“At first when you hear their stories, it kind of takes you aback, but once you get to know them you realize they’re pretty decent guys,” says Tharp. “You kind of get to be a family.”
