Day laborers get a raise

Agoura workers ask $15 an hour


WAITING-Day laborers wait for job offers along the roadside at Agoura Road and Kanan Road.

WAITING-Day laborers wait for job offers along the roadside at Agoura Road and Kanan Road.


Summer’s golden chaparral blankets the hillsides above Agoura and Kanan roads. The amber waves of brush are an apt symbol for the rich opportunities America offers immigrants, including the day laborers who congregate at this corner.

The men recently placed Agoura Hills on the national map with their bold request for a $15an-hour wage.

Many of the laborers crossed deserts and rivers to reach the U.S. from Mexico and Central America. Willing to take on the tough and dirty jobs that nobody else wants, they’re asking for more than the $5 or $10 an hour offered by residents who drive by and hire workers for the day.

Agoura Hills may be the only city in the country where day laborers can garner such a wage, more than double California’s hourly minimum of $6.75.

Marvin Martinez, 43, is considered the Cesar Chavez of day laborers, at least on this stretch of land.

Martinez led the charge for higher hourly wages for immigrant laborers in Agoura Hills, and he doesn’t care whether the workers have crossed American borders legally or not.

“I’m the one who started it,” Martinez said about the move to command $5 per hour more than what was is usually paid for construction, painting and other labor-intensive jobs.

While a higher hourly wage is welcomed by the workers, some prospective employers refuse to pay more than $10 per hour. Martinez said he was offered a $10 per hour job Tuesday, but refused.

“Nobody’s going for $10,” Martinez said he told the potential employer.

Martinez doesn’t know how other workers can survive on $10 an hour. He said that in Thousand Oaks, some laborers will accept jobs for even less.

“Maybe they don’t notice everything is going up,” Martinez said. But he admitted that many day laborers cut costs by sharing apartments, homes or even single rooms.

High cost of living

Martinez came to America from El Salvador 26 years ago and has worked from his base at the Agoura Hills corner for more than 15 years. He said the skyrocketing price of gas and living expenses prompted him and his fellow workers to refuse jobs that pay less than $15 an hour.

“Life’s not that easy,” Martinez said. He lives in North Hollywood with his wife and two children, one of whom attends Pierce College and dreams of becoming a police officer.

Although Martinez drives his own car to the site each day, he said workers who ride the Metro or bus will undoubtedly see the cost for public transportation rise along with the price of gas.

Even though some residents refuse to pay the higher wage, Martinez isn’t worried. As of last Wednesday he said he’d only worked one full day for the week, but said he had earned full-time wages the previous week. He planned to present a bid for a fencing job that afternoon, and said he usually keeps busy with painting jobs, stucco work and dry walling.

A closed shop

Asked whether workers from other areas are anxious to join the 30 or so regulars in Agoura Hills, Martinez said they are not welcome.

He said that in the past newcomers either didn’t possess the same skill level as many regulars at the site, or stole from employers, threatening the livelihood and reputations of other men in the established group.

Martinez said new workers are only allowed to join the Agoura Hills group if they are related to one of the workers there or have been carefully screened by them.

He said laborers who do shoddy work or accept lower wages are asked to look for work elsewhere.

While strict rules restrict the number of day workers on the Agoura Hills corner, Martinez encourages laborers gathered elsewhere to demand the same wages.

‘A rock and a hard place’

Agoura Hills Mayor Denis Weber said he was “shocked” to learn that day laborers were paid so well.

“Is this the new minimum wage for California or at least Agoura Hills?” Mayor Denis Weber asked. “That’s a sea change.”

In1991 the city passed an ordinance to prohibit day laborers from soliciting work on local roadways.

After the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the ordinance in state court and lost, many of the day workers were arrested and city officials saw a decline in the number of men seeking work.

Weber said when a federal court declared a similar Los Angeles ordinance unconstitutional, the Agoura Hills ordinance suddenly lost its clout and the day workers returned.

Weber said the Agoura Hills ordinance was “justifiable,” and he wished that county officials had appealed the federal court’s ruling.

“We’re between a rock and a hard place,” Weber said.

Although Weber and other city officials have received complaints about day laborers, he said residents appear to have accepted the workers gathered at the corners.

“They don’t like it but they have to accept it,” he said.

“It’s terrible that their own countries can’t get their act together to provide a decent economy to their own residents,” Weber said. “That’s the crime.”

As for trading in his day job for more conventional work, Martinez, who says he is a legitimate U.S. citizen who pays income taxes, said he prefers to work independently.

He’s worked for contractors in the past, but doesn’t like to be rushed on a job. Instead, he prefers to work at a more moderate pace since many of the jobs he accepts are so physically strenuous.

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