A Day Laborer is a worker who is hired for the time necessary to complete a job, usually paid daily.
The majority of day laborers are recent immigrants who are usually unaware of their rights and the resources available to them in the place where they live. For that reason they are constantly victimized by unscrupulous bosses and local authorities.
This lack of information makes them vulnerable to violations of their human rights and labor rights. Amongst the most common violations are:
- physical assaults by contractors and the police
- robberies
- threats made by strangers and merchants
- ethnic slurs made by the police, by strangers, and by merchants
- injuries on the job
- lack of proper safety equipment
- wage theft by contractors
- not being given a break to rest when working eight hours
In response to these problems, we organize day laborers and community members to come together to create better working conditions and to push for government policies that will respect the rights of day laborers to seek work in peace.
Our message to decision makers is that repression of day laborers who are just looking for jobs is not only an ineffective way to address the issue; it actually increases human rights violations.