News Briefs

Day laborers sue Chicago over harassment

Feb 14, 2008 12:58 PM

Day laborers in Chicago are suing the city, charging police with systematic harassment and false arrest. The laborers, who gather on street corners where contractors hire them and transport them to jobs at remote locations, allege wrongful detention, violation of First Amendment rights, conspiracy to violate civil rights and malicious prosecution in denying their right to assemble in public places.

The lawsuit cites examples of police intimidation, including allegations that a police officer forced an employer and three day laborers out of a car at gunpoint, and an alleged sting operation in which undercover officers, posing as contractors, lured workers to a Home Depot to discuss employment and then arrested them for criminal trespass.

Despite federal rulings protecting day laborers’ right to congregate, municipalities continue to push anti-day-laborer measures. The City Council in Escondido, Calif., is considering an ordinance stopping workers from soliciting jobs on street corners, while in Herndon, Va., town fathers closed a workers’ center in September after ignoring a circuit court judge’s ruling that it remain open.

There are some 117,000 estimated day laborers nationwide.

In These Times, Jan. 31