Urban planning expert Nik Theodore details how the day labor market has changed and how workers can stay safe.
By Sebastián Hidalgo
A group of day laborers wait for contractors to enter on the Western Boulevard entrance of Home Depot, 4555 S. Western Blvd. on April 4, 2024. (Sebastián Hidalgo/for City Bureau)
On an unseasonably warm day, more than 100 day laborers stand on the curb between two large Home Depot parking lots in Chatham.
Venezuelans take up the corner, and Senegalese migrants stand in the middle. Ecuadorians and Colombians are at the far end of the strip. Everyone is looking for work, and they flock toward potential employers who drive up one at a time, gesturing for three workers — sometimes more, sometimes fewer — with their fingers.
When day laborers do get jobs, it is common for many to be paid far below minimum wage or not at all. The worst cases involve threats of violence, harassment, sexual exploitation and assault. It’s a trend that follows anti-migrant rhetoric in the political ecosystem, said Nik Theodore, a professor of urban planning and policy, and director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois Chicago, who has studied the day labor economy since the early 2000s.
“Day laborers have become, in many ways, the public face of a broken immigration system,” he said. “When the anti-immigrant rhetoric in the political spheres gets dialed up, with it, so do acts of violence.”
City Bureau spoke with Theodore in 2024 to learn more about the day labor market in Chicago and what newly arrived migrants should know to stay safe.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
How does anti-immigrant rhetoric hurt day laborers?
[Day laborers are] very visible in public spaces and in the media. Violent anti-immigrant forces often target day laborers, and we saw a number of cases where workers would be hired for the purpose of being assaulted. There were some attacks in New York and some other places, too. This is one of the outcomes of anti-immigrant rhetoric that, too often, politicians capitalize on. Immigrant workers, like day laborers, often become demonized and blamed for all sorts of issues, and we're seeing that now. We're going to see more.
In what ways does this show up in Chicago?
In Chicago [in the 1990s and early 2000s], the largest informal hiring site was a Shell gas station on the north side of Belmont Avenue, and the largest population by nationality was Polish — not usually what we think of.
Over time, workers from Mexico, Central America and, to a lesser extent, South America started looking for work there, too. The aldermen either didn’t like it or were under pressure to do something about it.
In neighborhoods like Pilsen and up near Albany Park, aldermen would call the Chicago Police Department to try to eliminate those hiring sites by enforcing trespassing laws. There was a lot of controversy.
Many recent arrivals still need to qualify for a work permit, which can take a long time. How important is it for day laborers and community organizations to stay connected during that wait?
It will be vital, because what if you're in a jurisdiction where day laborers are being punished in one way or another? That also gives license to employers to take advantage of the situation. In the work we've done over the past two decades on this topic, that is a consistent pattern. Usually, workers will agree to do a job and agree to a wage, then they'll be driven to a worksite somewhere and often abandoned without being paid. For recent arrivals unfamiliar with the Chicago area, you can end up in a place you've never been. The employer says, ‘Hey, I've got to go run to Home Depot,’ or ‘I've got to run and get some gas, or go to the ATM,’ and never comes back, and you're stranded. That is an all-too-familiar experience for most day laborers.
How can day laborers protect themselves?
At informal hiring sites, a leadership structure begins to form organically. Leaders start to step forward and emerge, so there's some self-policing. When it develops a little further, those informal structures will begin to set minimum wages and shun abusive employers that might have been at hiring sites.
Is there anything else that day laborers might need to know?
One of the things that the National Day Laborer Organizing Network did back in the early 2000s was work with a group of workers in Redondo Beach, California, to file a lawsuit against an anti-solicitation ordinance. The ruling [issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2011] said that it was within our First Amendment right to stand on a street corner to say, ‘I'd like to get work.’
It was terrific that undocumented immigrant day laborers would [be the ones to] push this and win the right. What's important about this lawsuit is that they won the right for everyone.
Find more coverage on migrant labor by City Bureau’s Civic Reporting fellows here, including a Know Your Rights guide, published in collaboration with Latino Union of Chicago. Support City Bureau’s Civic Reporting fellowship by becoming a recurring donor.