Chris James needed help moving a piano and three dozen boxes of records from his music studio. Instead of corralling some buddies, he rented a truck and approached day laborers from outside the local Home Depot. Within minutes, two men promised $12.50 an hour were in his truck.
The pair finished the job in an hour and a half while James, 31, looked on. For hauling a piano and wedging a sofa into his Burbank condo, then stacking the boxes in a back room, he owed the men less than $40.
It's the kind of scene replayed daily across the nation.
It was the first time James hired day laborers, but it won't be his last. "Absolutely satisfied," he said.
The No. 1 employers of day laborers are private homeowners -- not construction contractors, not professional landscapers.
"Day labor is not a niche market," said Abel Valenzuela, a UCLA professor and one of three authors of the first national day-labor study, which was released in January. "It's now entering different aspects of the national mainstream economy."
Forty-nine percent of day-labor employers are homeowners, according to 2,660 laborers interviewed for the study. Contractors were second, at 43%. The study also found that three-quarters of day laborers were illegal immigrants and most were from Latin America.
Homeowners hire them because they are a flexible labor pool with no red tape and no overhead. And they'll do backbreaking jobs much cheaper than traditional contractors.
Day laborers like homeowners too.
Shady contractors routinely stiff them. Not homeowners -- the workers know where they live.
"And in houses, they give us food, water and soda," said Herminio Velazquez, 48, taking a break from unloading record boxes at James' condo.
Although some homeowners say they're conflicted over hiring people who likely have no work documents, they don't believe they are doing wrong. Many say only day laborers will do the tough jobs.
It's an argument rejected by anti-illegal immigration activists.
"They know they are hiring illegal aliens and breaking the law," said Joseph Turner, who is trying to force San Bernardino to outlaw taxpayer-funded day-labor centers. "They are contributing to the illegal immigration problem."
Across the Southland, cities are dealing differently with increasing numbers of day laborers, many undocumented. Some have built day-labor centers; others have cracked down on workers when residents have complained of loitering.
