Activists try to organize Houston's day laborers
According to this Chronicle story by Edward Hegstrom, local activists are trying to organize day laborers:
Activists circulated among day laborers near Shepherd on Friday, hoping to organize the workers before the arrival of the Minutemen in October.
The leaders said they plan to hold a meeting Aug. 27 to establish order among the city's street labor markets, populated mostly by illegal immigrant workers.
"What we want to do is organize workers on all the corners," of Houston, Maria Jimenez, of the newly formed Coalition Against Intolerance and For Respect, told a group of workers.
The effort to organize the workers comes as the Houston Police Department steps up efforts to prevent day laborers in the area around Washington and Shepherd from trespassing on the property of local businesses.
[snip]
Some of the workers said they welcome an effort to organize, and would like to have a day laborer center. A nearby shelter for immigrants, Casa Juan Diego, operates a hiring hall, but it is open only to men who are staying there.
Borrowing from the Civil Rights movement, when blacks carried signs saying "I am a man," the group plans to distribute fliers with the message "I am a human being with rights and dignity," in English and Spanish.
And then there's this interesting tidbit at the end:
Under pressure from immigrant rights groups, the Houston Police Department agreed earlier this year to review its policy of photographing day laborers. July 27, Chief Harold Hurtt issued a circular reaffirming its policy of photographing trespassers.
Under Texas law, people have a right to be warned once before they can be arrested for trespassing, said Lt. Robert Manzo, an HPD spokesman. Officers who warn the day laborers first ask them for identification. Those workers who lack identification are photographed so that if they are caught again, the officer can prove in court that the worker had been warned, Manzo said.
I'm not sure what to make of that, since previously HPD said officers wouldn't photograph day laborers.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/14/05 08:31 AM | Print |
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