Who's The Boss?: Holding Day Labor Employers Accountable in Chicago

By Greg Boozell

Many Chicago employers rely on a day labor employment system which routinely exploits immigrant workers. (Sounds familiar!)

More and more, Chicago employers impose contingency on their low wage workforce as a human resource strategy. Undocumented immigrants play an important role in this system which reduces company obligations to workers and depresses wages.

Accompanying this drive to keep wages low, employers continue to push for greater "flexibility" in their workforce. Echoing the principles of "just in time inventory management," companies increasingly push toward a "just in time" workforce as well. In this model, workers function much like commodities, delivered to the work site when needed, and dispatched when not. In this system, any social contract between the worker and employer is dissolved.

San Lucas Workers Center (SLWC), a bi-lingual, multi-racial committee of immigrant and U.S.-born day labor workers, has pursued abusive agencies for years. Through its work, abusive agencies have been subject to fines and other penalties from both the state and federal departments of labor. In one case, a violating agency was successfully shut down.

MR Zine posted 11-8-06