Criminal justice administration students create video for Hayward Day Laborer Center

Cal State East Bay criminal justice administration students have provided the Hayward Day Labor Center with a video to inform day laborers on protecting themselves against wage theft and other forms of exploitation. Alejandro Galindo, job developer and legal advocate for the center, says the film is so successful that similar organizations across the country are already asking for a similar video to address their needs. Silvina Ituarte, professor and chair of CSUEB's Criminal Justice Administration Department, learned of this need from consulting with Galindo, and offered a Day Laborer Center project to her student this fall in the “Prejudice, Violence and Hate Crimes” (CRJA 4330) class.  Criminal justice majors Joshua Chavez, Ramneet Dhillon, Robert Huerta, Andreina Leon, Kristen Martin, Vinh Nguyen, Jagdeep Singh, Jaclyn Skinner, Helen Luu and Bryant Weatheroy created the film in about six weeks, with the leadership of Huerta, who owns a film company.

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Sandy Sweeps Away New York City’s Only Day Laborer Center

A storm surge from Hurricane Sandy unmoored the Bay Parkway Community Job Center, New York City’s only center for day laborers, and moved it a couple hundred feet inland from the Bensonhurst shore, cracking one of its walls in the process. Ligia Guallpa of the Worker Justice Projects, which operates the center, and Lionel, one of the center’s founders, tried to show it to me Tuesday afternoon, but the New York Police Department objected.   “I’m trying to be nice, okay? You have to go,” Office Dym instructed us. “We’re here for a reason,” he said, getting out of his vehicle to push me away. “It’s not safe.”   “See?” Guallpa lamented. “This is what they do to us every morning when we have workers.” The police have blocked off the “hazard area” around the center, though just why was not remotely apparent, when we subsequently snuck in the back way. Despite repeated inquiries form Guallpa and the Worker Justice Center, the authorities have refused to estimate when the “hazard area”...

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Jornaleros indocumentados pierden centro de empleo en NY - laopinion.com

Gavino Hernández observaba con tristeza ayer lo que quedó en el interior de una pequeña casita roja de madera donde logró encontrar trabajo como jornalero durante varios años. "Nos sentimos en la ruina. No nos queda nada", murmuró el mexicano indocumentado, más conocido como "Camilo" y quien hace trabajos esporádicos de construcción. "Queremos que los compañeros sigan aquí todavía. En las esquinas, haciendo de jornalero, uno corre mucho peligro". Hernández hablaba de "la casita", una diminuta estructura de madera con una puerta amarilla que alentó a cientos de jornaleros durante más de una década en el barrio de Bensonhurst, en Brooklyn. Allí se reunían pronto por las mañanas, se organizaban y eran recogidos por empresas de construcción que necesitan mano de obra barata durante el día. Los vientos huracanados de la supertormenta Sandy, sin embargo, arrancaron de cuajo el pequeño centro y lo trasladaron unos 50 metros al norte, en el centro comercial de Ceasar Bay.

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Centreville Day Laborers Site Almost Ready

It's been more than a year since Fairfax County Supervisor Michael Frey called a public meeting to discuss the proposal to open a hiring site for immigrant day laborers in Centreville. "The atmosphere was obviously pretty heated," he says.  But Frey, a Republican, says most of the objections came from residents who had a problem with federal immigration policy. "The people that were objecting were objecting because they believed all the day laborers were here illegally, and wanted that problem solved," Frey says.  Frey understands those concerns. But he points out the county has little power to influence federal immigration enforcement, and the center is a way to keep immigrant workers who are looking for work from gathering on street corners and impeding commerce and traffic. It will also keeping the workers themselves safer, Frey adds. Alice Foltz is the temporary director of the Centreville Immigration Forum, a coalition of churchgoers that came up with the idea...

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