Every morning at 6 a.m., about 100 able-bodied men gather around a local supermarket on Northern Boulevard in Flushing. A man pulls over a pick-up truck near the road, and looks out of the window. More than 10 men start to crowd round the truck, but the truck driver points to two, tall and healthy-looking men among them. After they climb in the back, the truck drives to a near by construction site where the two men work for $6 an hour.
These are day laborers. For decades, immigrants from almost every country have found work on street corners, working for an hourly wage wherever they are needed. Today, New York City still has one of the largest populations of day laborers in the country. It is estimated that there are two dozen sites in the city where approximately 3,000 day laborers wait to be picked up.
In addition to low pay, long hours, and dangerous working conditions, day laborers also face troubles within the neighborhoods where they look for work. Residents in the areas complain about the men loitering on the corners or in the parking lots.
“It is not that bad early in the morning,” said Tae Kim, one of residents on the corner of 147th Street and Northern Boulevard. “But it is a little bit annoying that those who couldn’t find a job stay there all day long and loiter on the corner.” It is not easy to solve this problem because the employers in the community want to pick up cheap day laborers on street, and the workers need a place to wait for the employers; all are illegal.