Almost every morning about 6 a.m., Isidro Alonzo walks to the intersection of Main and Depot streets in hopes of being picked up by a construction or landscaping contractor who needs an extra hand, or a homeowner looking for help moving furniture or doing yard work.
One morning in early July, he said in Spanish that he had recently been hired by a couple of homeowners - one who needed help cleaning up debris and hauling large items to the trash, and one who had a day's worth of weeds to pull out of his yard.
A few weeks later Alonzo, 36, said he had found similar work about two to three days a week, and that's about the same frequency with which other day laborers reported securing employment. On the days he isn't picked up by about 11 a.m., he said he goes home to rest, do chores or watch television.
With no guarantee of future or ongoing work, this is Alonzo's daily routine and the jobs he finds are his primary source of personal income. He has been a day worker in Morgan Hill for about two years, since he moved here from Toluca, Mexico.
Alonzo joins anywhere from 60 to 80 other day laborers who gather every morning except Sunday in front of A Tool Shed, a construction and landscape equipment rental business.
Of the dozen or so day laborers interviewed over the course of several weeks this summer, all of them said available work has dropped off since late 2007.
Jose Rodriguez, 38, said employers pick him up at Main and Depot streets about five days out of every 10. He said he works for a construction company that offers consistent but not daily work.
"When they don't call me, I come here," he said in Spanish while standing at the intersection.
The going rate for day laborers is $10 an hour, regardless of the kind of work they are asked to do, and they get paid a little extra if the employer is impressed with the work they do, according to those interviewed.
Most of the day laborers don't have families in Morgan Hill, and live with friends who moved here before them, or with people they met when they arrived.
Alonzo said he used to send about $500 a month back to his parents in Toluca, but lately he has only been able to send $350 at the most. Others reported sending money back home irregularly, and some said they are unable to send anything.
The local day workers tend to keep their living expenses low. Ignacio Gonzalez, 24, also moved here from Toluca about a year ago. He lives in a three-bedroom apartment with eight other men, all of whom have regular jobs. Juan Gonzalez, 37, just moved to Morgan Hill from Oaxaca, Mexico three months ago, and lives with three others in a one-bedroom apartment.
As many of the day workers are undocumented, they are ineligible for or afraid to seek public assistance, said Julian Mancias, translator and Morgan Hill Realtor. Indeed, most of them declined even to speak to the Times on three separate visits to their gathering spot.
That's why community members, particularly a group of parishioners at St. Catherine's Parish, where numerous day workers attend church, decided several years ago to step in and provide some of the basic needs that poor people often go without.
The Day Worker Center is now defunct, having closed when the committee's lease ended in 2007.
"Our effort was to offer them a little dignity and self-respect," Mancias said. "Often, we feel like they get treated like objects. One of our main goals was to show respect and help them out."
At one point, the center had about 200 workers registered. Now, that number has dropped, and there's nowhere for the job-seekers to register.
Day worker committee members cite a number of possible reasons for the shrinking local day laborer population. Some of the older ones have gone back to Mexico because of the disappearance of work in Morgan Hill, according to committee member Juan Diaz.
"Whatever they have here, they sell all their belongings, and go back to buy some machinery and do their trade," he said.
Some employers seek workers with a specific skill, according to day laborer Gabe Molina. Molina is not the typical day laborer. He is a 64-year-old American citizen originally from New Mexico. Retired from a 25-year career as a cement mason, he goes to Main and Depot about two or three days a week, because he would be bored at home, he said. He started looking for day work about two years ago.
"There was a lot of work going on back then," Molina said in English, with only a hint of a foreign accent.
Garredo Pacheco, 42, is another atypical day worker. He has a wife and kids in Gilroy, and he worked on a farm in San Martin for 17 years. He started seeking day work about seven years ago because it paid more than the minimum wage farm job.
Another reason there are fewer day workers now could be that some have found consistent work with a regular employer, Diaz said.
Furthermore, both Mancias and Diaz said they don't recognize a lot of the laborers from when the committee was active. And a lot of the new faces are those of young men in their 20s.
Since the Day Worker Center closed, there has been little communication between the community and the day laborers, Mancias noted. Thus, instances of abuse or illegal activity on the part of employers may go unreported.
A comprehensive study of the nationwide day laborer population undertaken by UCLA, University of Illinois, Chicago, and New School University completed in 2006 found frequent instances of abuse, injuries on the job, and denial of wages. But Mancias said it was "rare" to hear of such malfeasance in Morgan Hill, and the center staff never had to follow through on complaints with employers, even though that could be due to lapses in communication.
The day workers the Times spoke to said employers have always treated them well, and reliably provide them lunch, water and breaks.
Diaz said the day workers have a strong sense of community, and he has heard that they are hoping to put together a Mexican Independence Day party this weekend at one of Morgan Hill's parks. And St. Catherine's Parish still organizes some help for the day workers, with an annual Thanksgiving dinner at the church.
Some Saturday mornings, day worker committee Marta Valle pulls up to the intersection of Main and Depot streets with a trunk full of donated pastries and coffee for the crowd of day workers. She started the gesture on her own about two years ago, she said, and quickly gained the support of St. Catherine's.
"I feel like somebody needs to do something for them," she said. "It's really something good when people give them a job."
Michael Moore Michael Moore covers county and law enforcement issues for the Morgan Hill Times. Reach him at (408) 779-4106, ext. 202, or mmoore@morganhilltimes.com.
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