Day labor (or day labour in Commonwealth spelling) is work done where the worker is hired and paid one day at a time, with no promise that more work will be available in the future. It is a form of contingent work.

Types

Day laborers (also known archaically as ''daysmen'' ) find work through three common routes. Firstly, some employment agencies specialize in very short-term contracts for manual labor most often in construction, factories, offices, and manufacturing. These companies usually have offices where workers can arrive and be assigned to a job on the spot, as they are available. Secondly, a manager looking for additional labor to fill an unexpected change in plans is presented with a problem of finding the needed quantity of labor with the right skills. Imagine the magnitude of the task of looking for workers, on the side of the street or by calling various employment agencies, who can verify that they are journeyman asphalt rakers, typists, programmers, etc. The benefit of representation is applied to both the labor and employer. Labor is given a source of recourse to achieve a safe work environment free of favoritism and arbitrary work assignments. Employers benefit from organized labor training programs, benefit plans, dispute resolution and a labor supply meeting most employers labor demand at most any time or place. The benefit of a labor supply arriving at a specified time and location within less than a day's notice is reduced overhead resources. Thirdly and less formally, workers meet at well-known locations, usually public street corners or commercial parking lots, and wait for building contractors, landscapers, home owners and small business owners, and other potential employers to offer work. Much of this work is in small residential

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and ...

or landscaping. These workers earn, on average, $8–$10 an hour. The media and a study by

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

portrays day laborers as being illegal immigrants from

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

and

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, who otherwise can't get work due to current employment regulations. Other research has found that day laborers are not typically illegal immigrants, many even being citizens of the US, and that day labor is often a transition to full-time work.

Day labor in the United States

Informal day labor is not new to the United States, and day laborers are not always

migrant workers A migrant worker is a person who migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have the intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work. Migrant workers who work outsi ...

in many cases. In his study of day laborers in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,71 ...

, Terry Easton interviews

white White is the lightness, lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully diffuse reflection, reflect and scattering, scatter all the ...

and

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

day laborers in addition to

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties for ...

workers. Many other metropolitan areas still have non-immigrant day laborers, and many other large and small cities have immigrant day laborers from a variety of countries, including

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 millio ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

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Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, Central and South America, and countries in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. Non-immigrant informal day labor, seen in many cities, does not generate the controversy or calls to police and local government seen when immigrant day laborers gather to wait for work. Unorganized day labor creates real problems for day laborers: 1 in 3 corner day laborers have experienced theft of wages in the past two months; 1 in 5 experienced a serious worksite injury in the past year. Low wages and poor working conditions, employer abuse, and lack of insurance for work related accidents is common. Numerous complaints are made about immigrant day laborers. These include loitering, noise, crime and rushing cars of potential employers in parking lots. Cities and counties have tried a variety of solutions with varied success. Some municipalities and communities have supported workers' efforts to organize themselves into democratically run workers' centers, designated areas, and

organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived fro ...

s to defend workers' rights in general. Workers' Centers of this kind date back at least 18 years to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

. Other municipalities have targeted day labor sites for aggressive enforcement of immigration laws. Though united in their commitment to the rights of

immigrant workers Foreign workers or guest workers are people who work in a country other than one of which they are a citizen. Some foreign workers use a guest worker program in a country with more preferred job prospects than in their home country. Guest worker ...

, NDLON and the Day Labor Research Institute represent two very different models of day labor center. NDLON represents the "social service agency model" and the Institute the "day laborer designed model." These different models of day labor centers may yield markedly different results that reflect the different goals of each model. Problems when workers' centers are established are also common: day laborers often continue to congregate in large numbers on the streets surrounding the day labor centers, refusing to leave the street and use the center; new problems can be created, including new crowds of homeless and substance abusers loitering near the center after hours, and large numbers of day laborers drawn from other areas to the streets surrounding the centers. Low levels of work at the centers, low wages, and problems with the job distribution system are also common. Karla Cornejo Villavicencio's ''The Undocumented Americans'' (2020) largely focusses on undocumented immigrants working as day laborers in the US.

References

External links

Organizations

Casa Latina

Issue Lab: Day Labor

Day Labor Research Institute

In film and television

PBS The Workers documentary

PBS Farmingville documentary

Day Labor, a short comedy satirizing corporate America through the experience of two laborers

The Job, an award-winning comic short
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