Working in Worcester
by Mike Benedetti Wednesday, May. 11, 2005 at 10:01 AM

These stories are true. The names have been changed. At the time they were interviewed, these men were day laborers in Worcester.

Jose: [The labor agency office] opens at a quarter past five. There's about ten people outside before they open. They start coming in quick. Usually about twenty people there^[1] . Not everybody goes out [to a job], though. Some people already got their position saved, you know? They've been going to a certain place everyday. So, if that's where you go everyday, you got a position saved. But if you miss one day, and you don't call, they send somebody else, they have to be sending the other people. So you lose your position there. And you have to come in, wait something else to come up, so you can be on the list again.

I usually wait till about seven, sometimes eight. Because most of the jobs, they start around six o'clock, seven o'clock, and I figure, they don't have anything by seven o'clock, y'know, why wait. Except for the Centrum^[2], that's a night job, they gotta lot of night jobs. Like, after the hockey games? Usually about nine o'clock, they need people to start cleaning after everybody leave. And the hockey games, sometimes it's three shifts per day, three games a day.

They got a small van^[3] [they take you to the job in]. Fits about seven people. Usually they deduct you for the ride, they charge you for it. I think it's $1.50 per day. That's not too bad. Because if I take the bus, it's $2.50 a day.

But the thing is, we have to go over [to the labor agency office] first. We'd like to go to the job straight, but we have to go over there. They have to make sure people come in, I guess. I don't know.

Usually you get like a labor job, a factory job. That's easy. Anyone can do. They train you what to do, tell you what to do when you get there. And you pick up and continue. It all depend on how you do. You stay there longer if you do well. They will call back for you. They're usually like pretty good jobs, you know, common sense stuff. 6:00 AM to 2:30 PM, that particular job. Cause they deduct half an hour for lunch. They do provide you with the safety [equipment] in most of the places.

But they don't charge you?

No.

I worked four days last week. Today I was lucky. They didn't need so many people, but somebody didn't come in. So, that's why I worked. I took his position. I was lucky today. Tomorrow, I dunno.

For eight hours, it's $48 a day, after they deduct the ride. And they pay daily^[4].

This one place charges a dollar [to cash a check]. But if you go to a bank, it don't cost you anything. But I think you have to go to the same bank where that check is from. I have an account, but I only got two dollars in my account.

I can afford maybe the basics, but I can't afford a place, because you can't count on a job like that to have your own roof^[5]. What if there's no work, you know? And you don't make enough, anyways, to support yourself.

The best pay was $15 an hour, with waste management people, picking up recycling on the truck. That was the best. I did it for about three days.

It's a pain in the ass, but, you know, when you're starting again, you have to take whatever you can get, for now. And, you know, once you get situated, then you have to think about another job. I was trying to get the construction work that I know, but most of the jobs in construction you need your license and your car. I don't have my license and I don't have my car, so it's going to be hard for the construction.

I've been looking for work for a couple of years. I was working for the other place for nineteen months. And now that I'm looking for work again, it's like starting all over. It's tough. Especially when you lose everything.

Are you getting any government aid right now?

No. I want to work. And I keep trying. I'll get something, though, soon. It's a matter of time.

Edgar: I have what they call a steady ticket, so I've been going out to the same place now for almost a year^[6]. What I do is, I do assembly work. And, you know, it's a good job. It's out of the weather, and pays decent. We started out at seven bucks an hour, and now it's nine. Which in today's day and age isn't really that much money, but it's better than nothing at all, y'know. It's good--better than collecting welfare or unemployment^[7].

I live in a trailer. A mobile home. I pay a hundred bucks a week.

Well, the only bad thing that I don't like about it is you have to be there at five thirty in the morning. Which means I gotta get up at four^[8], to catch the first bus out to get here, for when the office opens, and if I'm ten minutes late--too bad. But I usually make it every day, so it's not that much of a problem.

Tyrone: [I've been living] in the PIP shelter three weeks. [I'm working] maybe twice a week. Well, the wages could be better. Sometimes six-something an hour, sometimes seven-something an hour. I feel like they could pay better for the job for the places they send us to. For the amount of money other people making on the job over there. And I think that, there's really no money. Forty dollars, fifty dollars a day. You work eight hours. It's no money^[9]. You can't live off of that. I mean, to me myself, being in a shelter, having nothing, is, what I gonna do? I gotta do something.

It's hard to get jobs out here. Without, y'know what I'm saying, like unless you're recommended to somebody, you know somebody. Just walk into them jobs now, it's hard to get jobs, unless you got certain skills.

If I had my pick of jobs? They'd know who was talking to you on this tape recorder. They know what profession I'm in.

Oh, okay. I won't ask you that question.

I just hope you can help out the people. Me myself, I'm not trying to stay here doing this, but a man gotta do what a man gotta do. To survive.

Excerpted from the June/July 2005 issue of The Catholic Radical: 52 Mason St, Worcester MA 01610.

Notes

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