Most day laborers are out of work and when they do get a job, they often are not paid. Some groups are raising money to at least help them get a plane ticket back to their home countries. - - Donna Poisl
By LAWRENCE DOWNES
Just south of the commuter train tracks in Huntington Station, Long Island, a weary pileup of streets forms a little district of desperation.
Down along New York Avenue, Fairground Avenue and Depot Road, men in groups of a half-dozen or more linger by a gas station, a bar, a tire-repair shop. They are Latino day laborers, waiting for trucks to pull up with jobs to do.
When times were good, there was lots of work. But hardly anyone is building or renovating now, and the men go days and weeks without being hired. Wages have plummeted, and when a job is done, the men are often paid nothing and told to get lost. The sidewalks they have claimed are small outposts of the national pain created by the burst housing bubble.
The men have no safety net: no unemployment insurance, no food stamps.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
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