Geographies of Hope and Despair:
Atlanta's African American, Latino, and White Day Laborers
Atlanta's African American, Latino, and White Day Laborers
Terry Easton, Emory University
Essay Sections:
Introduction
| International Atlanta | De-Centering the City | Labor Pools | Catch-Out Corners |
Non-Profit Hiring Halls | Workers on the Edge | Laboring for Justice | Notes | Recommended Resources
Non-Profit Hiring Halls | Workers on the Edge | Laboring for Justice | Notes | Recommended Resources
Laboring for Justice in Atlanta's Landscapes of Power:
Boosters promoted Atlanta as the "Jewel
of the South," "City of the Twenty-First
Century," and "Black Mecca." Sociologist Robert Bullard explains
that these titles have been misleading. "Atlanta,"
Bullard wrote in 1989, "is not a Mecca for thousands of low-income persons
who call the city home."46 Despite the
increasing quantity and circulation of money in Atlanta, low-wage workers
struggled to survive in a rapidly changing economic, social, and political
milieu. Atlanta's low wage workers did not reap the economic and political
rewards accorded more skilled workers during Atlanta's transformation to
a global city in the closing decades of the twentieth century. Many day laborers,
particularly African American men, worked at or just above minimum wage and
lived in
penurious conditions. In the early 1980s, day laborers had little political
power. By 2005, even though day laborers had found the attention of attorneys,
legislators, activists, and workplace justice advocates, effective solutions
for
their most pressing concerns (low wages, hazardous working conditions, and
employer abuse) remained elusive. Viewed through a day laboring lens, Atlanta's
growth and development at the cusp of the twenty-first century was impressive
but profoundly uneven.47
Social movement theorists Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward contend that to be poor means to command none of the resources ordinarily considered requisites for social change: money, organizational skill and professional expertise, and personal relations with officials.48 They also argue that the instability of poor people's lives generally prevents sustained efforts for social change. Despite day laborers' general lack of stability and resources, some of their grievances have been addressed through the passage of labor pool legislation, the formation of a union, legal assistance for wage and hour violations, and the development of informational outreach and worker-safety programs.
Social movement theorists Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward contend that to be poor means to command none of the resources ordinarily considered requisites for social change: money, organizational skill and professional expertise, and personal relations with officials.48 They also argue that the instability of poor people's lives generally prevents sustained efforts for social change. Despite day laborers' general lack of stability and resources, some of their grievances have been addressed through the passage of labor pool legislation, the formation of a union, legal assistance for wage and hour violations, and the development of informational outreach and worker-safety programs.
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For this effort to arise, activists had to perceive that the conditions day laborers experienced were wrong and in need of redress. In response to day laborers' harsh working conditions and vulnerability to exploitation and abuse, concerned people from faith-based, non-profit, educational, and governmental organizations rallied in support of various initiatives for economic and workplace justice. In Atlanta's urban core, African American and white day laborers collaborated with attorneys and social justice groups to improve labor pool working conditions. Across Atlanta's regional sprawl, organizations implemented programs to curtail workplace danger and abuse that day laborers experienced throughout Atlanta's vast suburban landscapes. |
Day laborers' working lives were formed through employment relations rooted in marginalization, and were often defined by the production of a comfortable lifestyle for middle- and upper-class Americans.
Until affluent Americans fully comprehend the ways in which their lives are connected to those of day laborers, contingent workers at the margins will continue to experience abuse and hazardous conditions. To bring significant, lasting change to day laborers' lives, the landscapes of capitalism must be altered through individual and collective work that takes seriously the idea that people who labor deserve fair treatment and a living wage. "Beyond all the legalisms," former Department of Labor investigator Saul Sugerman says, "we all have to be willing to see other people as part of the human race. If we see people as less worthy than ourselves, we're never going to get anywhere."49
Work, even in its most tedious and grueling forms, should not degrade the human
spirit. |
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Work should be, in Studs Terkel's words, a search "for daily meaning as well
as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than
torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort
of dying."50
A fifty-year-old African American day laborer echoes Terkel's sentiments: "I
feel like if America would start paying these guys better money, better salaries,
and let 'em live more decent than what they're livin', then they will see a
better America."51 A Latino day laborer observes, "even though we're
immigrants we're still human beings."52
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Labor pool reform advocate Ed Loring talks about religion as protest,
(4:04 min.) Audio interview with Terry Easton, February 19, 2006, Atlanta, Georgia. RealMedia | Windows Media | QuickTime |
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Eric Kocher, an attorney for homeless workers, talks about labor pool workers' waiting, travel, and work time, (2:48 min.) Audio interview with Terry Easton, December 4, 2002, Atlanta, Georgia. RealMedia | Windows Media | QuickTime |
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Union member John Mosley talks about the Atlanta Labor Pool Workers' Union, (4:56 min.) Audio interview with Terry Easton, November 7, 2002, Conyers, Georgia. RealMedia | Windows Media | QuickTime |
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Civil Rights attorney Tisha Tallman talks about community outreach and intervention, (4:16 min.) Audio interview with Terry Easton, February 15, 2006, Atlanta, Georgia. RealMedia | Windows Media | QuickTime |
Essay Sections:
Introduction
| International Atlanta | De-Centering the City | Labor Pools | Catch-Out Corners |
Non-Profit Hiring Halls | Workers on the Edge | Laboring for Justice | Notes | Recommended Resources
Non-Profit Hiring Halls | Workers on the Edge | Laboring for Justice | Notes | Recommended Resources
