The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 22 (2011)

Fair Price for Whom?: A Critique of Fairness
and Justice in the Albany Park Workers’
Rights Campaign
Satomi YAMAMOTO*INTRODUCTION
Over the past few decades, American society has witnessed an increasing
number of undocumented migrant workers organizing labor rights campaigns to protect themselves from exploitive casual labor practices thatflourished in the agriculture, construction, and service industries. The slogan“justice for workers” encapsulates one of the key positions taken by the labor organizing community in the United States. The population of workers
once seen as the unorganizable—many of whom are undocumented immigrants—has started organizing themselves and gained public attention nationwide. In 2006 undocumented workers rallied in Chicago, Dallas, and
Los Angeles, to name a few locations, to protest H.R. 4437, a bill sponsoredby Senator Jim Sensenbrenner (Republican-Wisconsin) that proposed toraise penalties not only against unauthorized immigrants but also against theindividuals and organizations that assisted illegal immigrants enter or remain in the United States. Because workers’ centers, community-based organizations that engage in worker justice campaigns, were seen as the magnet locations for illegal immigrants, mostly from Latin America, they
became the central issue in the national debate over undocumented immigration.
Copyright © 2011 Satomi Yamamoto. All rights reserved. This work may be used,with this notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may
be distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission
from the author.
*Full-time Lecturer, National Fisheries University

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Immigrant day labor has been studied primarily in four research domains
in sociology. The first domain is poverty and inequality. Research in this areaconcludes that the growing wage difference between skilled and unskilledworkers, a result attributed to a globalizing, bifurcated labor market, has expanded income inequality in the United States. The growing number ofworkers’ centers and day laborer hiring sites in the United States and othercountries indicates that the demand for contingent work has increased overthe past few decades and gone global. This globalization of contingent work
has led to the resurgence of the informal economy, and with it poverty andinequality has increased in the United States and other countries (Bonacich
and Appelbaum 2000; Elcioglu 2010; Peck and Theodore 2001; Sassen
2006).
The second domain is the labor movement. The workers’ center movement is a new strand within the labor movement that primarily consists ofself-help programs run by immigrant community organizations and faithbased organizations. Unlike traditional labor unions, workers’ centers arecommunity-based rather than company- or industry-based organizations.
Despite local differences, workers’ centers have features in common. Many
workers’ centers offer English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, leadership-development workshops, and labor-organizing workshops in addition tojob placement services. Thus, workers’ centers have an important role in creating labor solidarity among undocumented workers (Bobo 2009; Fine
2005; Fine 2006; Krinsky 2007; Martin, Morales, and Theodore 2007; Milkman, Bloom, and Narro 2010; Theodore and Martin 2007).1
The third domain is immigration and the informal economy (Castells andPortes 1989; Light 2004; Light 2007; Portes 1994). Abel Valenzuela Jr.
(2006) has found three types of channels that construction employers use tohire immigrant day laborers. The connected type is a day labor hiring sitethat caters to specific industries, such as painting (Dunn-Edwards and Standard Brands, are representative painting contractor companies in the Los
Angeles area, where most of Valenzuela’s research was conducted), landscaping or gardening, moving (U-Haul; Ryder), and home improvement(Homebase; Home Depot). The unconnected type is an open-air hiring sitethat does not have any connections to a specific industry. However, the locations of unconnected hiring sites are well-known among day laborers andcontractors due to the spread of information about pickup locations by wordof mouth. The third or regulated type is a privately or publicly owned hiring
site where day laborers and prospective contractors can negotiate written
hiring contracts that stipulate the terms of employment.

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The fourth domain is immigrant entrepreneurship (Kim 2006; Pyong Gap
and Bozorgmehr 2000; Rath 2002; Staring 2000). Light and Rosenstein(1995) have found that immigrants in the informal economy become selfemployed immigrant entrepreneurs because self-employment can be a strategy for enabling some immigrants to survive economically in American society. These entrepreneurial immigrants choose to work in the informal
economy because they can increase disposable income by not paying federal
and state taxes. Moreover, entrepreneurial work can correlate with a flexible
and autonomous work environment, allowing some immigrants to be theirown bosses (Valenzuela, Jr. 2001). When viewed from the perspective of theadvantages provided by entrepreneurialism, undocumented workers go frombeing among the most vulnerable workers to becoming strategic actors whoseek to capitalize on their skills despite the limitations imposed by their undocumented status.
Although most research in these four areas has aimed to find approaches
that would help immigrant workers earn fair wages and receive fair treatment, few researchers have critically analyzed the conceptual meaning offair price and fair labor. In A Shameful Business, James A. Gross states,“Justice addresses not only the rights of each individual [fair treatment of
the self] but also the duties of all to respect, protect, and advocate the rights
of others [fair treatment of others]” (2010, 21). He also points out the importance of examining the values that underlie questions about social justice:
The sharply conflicting conceptions of workplace rights and justice and their consequences cannot be fully understood without exploring the values that underlie
each. More specifically, the decision-making process—whether judicial, administrative, or arbitral—cannot be fully understood without addressing the influenceof underlying values, particularly conceptions about the nature of the rights andpower relationship between employers and workers. (Gross 2010, 22)

Although the slogan “justice for workers” has been employed by workers’
centers organizers as the basis for creating labor solidarity among undocumented workers, most research has overlooked how workers’ rights campaigners and the people who support the idea of justice for workers have interpreted fairness and justice. Because the concept of fairness and justice inrelation to undocumented workers is an unexplored subject, the meaning ofthese terms has been taken for granted in current labor movement literature.
In this article I examine how fair price and fair labor are interpreted byimmigrant workers, workers’ center organizers, employers, and community
residents and then go on to argue that because the idea of fairness is an un-

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explored cultural concept invoked by workers’ center organizers, the Albany
Park Workers’ Center, a nonprofit Chicago neighborhood labor rights andeducation facility serving immigrants, did not give sufficient critical thought
to the possibility that this idea could generate misconceptions about the daylabor program created by this Center. As a result, the Center created the misleading impression that it was trying to appropriate day labor employment in
the neighborhood of Chicago in which the Center operated.
In this article I use several types of data to analyze the organizing activities of the Albany Park Workers’ Center.2 First, I collected ethnographic data
between September and December 2005 and conducted follow-up interviews in 2006 and 2008. The ethnographic data comprise participant observation notes, informal conversations, and semistructured and unstructured
interview notes. The participants in the study were twenty-six Spanish- andEnglish-speaking day laborers, four staffers, and eighteen contractors (construction employers and homeowners living near the Albany Park Workers’
Center). Workers’ Center organizers helped me interpret the conversationsof Spanish monolinguals. Moreover, local newspaper articles (Chicago Tribune; Hoy!), Workers’ Center newsletters, and unpublished memos werecollected in order to contrast and verify information provided by the Center.
Lastly, I conducted structured and semistructured interviews with refugeesettlement agencies, other workers’ centers, faith-based organizations, andchurches, in order to develop a fuller picture of the Albany Park Workers’
Center standing within the day laborer organizing campaigns conducted in
Chicago. Pseudonyms are used throughout to protect the privacy of participants.
The first section of this article contextualizes the case of workers’ centers
in Chicago by summarizing the history of the Albany Park Workers’ Centerand by describing the actions of the core participants in the study, Latino daylaborers ( jornaleros), contractors, and Workers’ Center organizers. The second section presents an example of a contract negotiation to demonstrate
how Workers’ Center staff interacted with jornaleros and contractors. The
following three sections show how each group involved in the study—
Workers’ Center organizers, jornaleros, and contractors—construed the notion of fairness, by interpreting ethnographic observations conducted in thisstudy. The last section discusses how the conception of fairness held by eachgroup differed and how these differences may have created an impression
among jornaleros and immigrant rights advocates that the Workers’ Centerorganizers tried to appropriate the day labor of jornaleros.

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CONTEXTUALIZING THE ALBANY PARK WORKERS’ CENTER
The workers’ centers movement was started in Chicago in response to theurgent need to protect undocumented workers, who often became targets oflabor exploitation and wage theft. In 2001 the Latino Union of Chicago
started organizing jornaleros in Plaza Tenochtitlan, a public park at the intersection of West 18th Street, South Blue Island Avenue, and South Loomis
Street, in response to frequent arrests of jornaleros by the Chicago Police
Department on charges of trespassing on private property.3 One wave of arrests took place when many local business owners, mostly of Mexican origin, requested the Chicago Police to relocate jornaleros from Plaza Tenochtitlan. The business owners complained that jornaleros created an
unacceptable civil disturbance by loitering near stores, shops, and offices.
In 2002 the City of Chicago attempted to relocate jornaleros who congregated in Albany Park. Having witnessed the same situation in the northwestside of Chicago, the Latino Union of Chicago decided to help street-corner
day laborers in Albany Park organize a workers’ rights campaign.
For decades, a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus turnaround near
North Pluski Road and West Foster Avenue in the area of Albany Park was alocation well-known to jornaleros for picking up work. As a means of forcing jornaleros to relocate away from Albany Park, the Chicago Park District
purchased the bus turnaround to build a bike path and a river walkway (Sanchez 2010). Alderman Margaret Laurino of the 39th Ward of Chicago designated new hiring sites where jornaleros would not be seen in public. One ofthese sites was at the rear of the Albany Park branch of the Salvation Army,
where day laborers awaiting the arrival of contractors would not be visible.
Because invisibility is a disadvantage for jornaleros seeking day labor, many
avoided the Salvation Army and other newly designated hiring sites andstarted creating new sites in other areas of the Albany Park neighborhood.4
In response, the Chicago Police started arresting day laborers and ticketing
contractors at the hiring sites unapproved by Chicago public officials.
In the face of this conflict, creating a place where jornaleros could safely
make employment arrangements became an urgent need. In December 2004
the Latino Union of Chicago opened the Albany Park Workers’ Center. The
Chicago media were immediately interested in the Center’s activities. Local
newspapers and TV stations reported the struggles that preceded the Center’s creation and that Center staff considered the achievement of a safe hiring site for jornaleros an important accomplishment that would benefit both
immigrant workers, the people who wanted to hire them, and the local com-

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munity. In September 2005 the City Council of Chicago granted the Latino
Union of Chicago a Community Leadership Award in recognition of theunion’s long-term commitment to immigrants’ rights. The City Council
praised the Albany Park Workers’ Center for creating space in the local
neighborhood where day laborers could safely negotiate with contractors
and where newly arrived immigrants to the Albany Park area could learn
English and develop their occupational skills. The City Council was also impressed by the ability of the new immigrants, with the Center’s help, tomake their demands for basic workers’ rights known, despite immigration
itself having become engulfed in heated political debate in the UnitedStates.5
Three groups regularly used, visited, and worked in the Albany Park
Workers’ Center. The first group were jornaleros. The vast majority of day
laborers in the United States are undocumented immigrants, although someare also documented immigrants and U.S. citizens (Valenzuela, Jr. et al.
2006, 17). Most jornaleros came from Central and Latin America, from suchcountries as Columbia, Ecuador, Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru, and they are
indigenous natives of their country whose first language is Quecha, not
Spanish. These Quecha-speaking jornaleros have difficulty learning English,
not only because they have had no formal English education in their homecountry, but also because their irregular daily working hours leaves little
time to study English.
The Albany Park Workers’ Center operated from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday
through Saturday. Some jornaleros waited in line before the Center opened,but most came in right after the doors were unlocked. The first thing many
did was to place their names on the job waiting list. They wrote down theircell phone number, level of English proficiency, basic construction skills,
and the availability of transportation. After signing in, some scanned the job
waiting list from the previous day, counting the number of names crossed
off. Counting the number of crossed-off names was a way of determining
which was best: waiting at the Center for a job or going to a street corner insearch of a day job.
The second group was contractors, mainly local small-size construction
companies and Chicago-area residents who wanted inexpensive laborers forhome improvement jobs. Contractors hire jornaleros on an hourly or workproject basis. The ethnic background of contractors was mostly either Caucasian or Asian, but also included Arabs, Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, Hispanics, and Persians. Contractors hired jornaleros as general help forlandscaping, moving, roofing, and wall-painting. Most of the contractors

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learned of the hiring program operated by the Albany Park Workers’ Centerby reading flyers, which were posted and distributed by jornaleros, volunteers, and Center staff. Also worth noting is that some experienced jornaleros became contractors. These supervisory jornaleros typically functioned as
foremen who subcontracted a portion of construction projects and hired daylaborers to complete the work.
The third group consists of volunteers and labor organizers who work at
the Albany Park Workers’ Center. In 2005 the Center had four young Spanish-English speaking staffers—two Mexican natives and two U.S. natives.
The turnover among Center staff is high. By 2010 most staff who worked at
the Center during the period of my field research between 2005 and 2008
had left. In 2005 María and José were the coordinators for all the programs
run by the Center. These programs included the day labor program, the popular education and leadership development program, and the training andtechnical assistance program.
The most important program was the day labor program, which handled
job allocations. Unlike temporary employment agencies, the Center did not
directly assign jobs to jornaleros. The Center tried to replicate the organizational structure of a street corner market by letting jornaleros negotiate theterms of employment directly with contractors. In addition, the Center expected jornaleros to follow the rules and minimum wage rates supported bya core group of jornaleros at the Center (comité de jornaleros), and bilingualCenter staff helped with Spanish-English and vice versa interpretation to facilitate negotiations. What follows is an example of a typical negotiation.
Contractor: (in English) I want to hire someone to do a painting job today.
A Workers’ Center coordinator looks through the sign-up list and finds a day laborer with painting skills.
Workers’ Center Coordinator: (in English) Do you want someone who speaks
English?
Contractor: (in English) It doesn’t matter. It’s a simple painting job.
Workers’ Center Coordinator: (shouts to the back of the room) Raul!
A day laborer, Raul, comes to the front.
Workers’ Center Coordinator: (in Spanish) He’s looking for a painter. Do you
want to go?
Raul: (in Spanish) What type of work? How much is he going to pay?
Workers’ Center Coordinator: (to the contractor in English) The worker wants toknow what type of work he’s going to do, and how much you’re going to pay
him.
Contractor: (in English) It’s a simple wall-painting. I’ll pay him $9 per hour.

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Workers’ Center Coordinator: (in Spanish to Raul) Wall-painting. $9 per hour.
Raul: (in Spanish) $9 per hour? I want $13 or $14 per hour. Not $9 per hour.
That’s not enough.
Workers’ Center Coordinator: (in English ) He wants $13 or $14 per hour.
Contractor: Fourteen? Wow. How about eleven?
Workers’ Center Coordinator: (in Spanish) Eleven.
Raul: (in Spanish) The rate is $12.
Workers’ Center Coordinator: (in English) Workers have set up the price forpainting, and it’s $12 per hour.
Contractor: (in English) Alright. I’ll take it.
Workers’ Center Coordinator: (in Spanish) $12 per hour is fine.
Raul: (In English) OK.
Raul offered his hand for a handshake. It means that a day laborer has agreed
with the offer. Both Raul and the contractor shook hands. The Workers’ Center
coordinator asked the contractor to fill in a sheet with his name, contact information, the type of work, hours, and hourly wage that he has agreed to pay. Then,
Raul and the contractor signed the sheet and each kept a copy for future reference.6

The next three sections of this article examine the ways in which the threegroups—Workers’ Center staff, contractors, and jornaleros—have construed
the notion of fairness/justice.
WE NEED NEW MEMBERS: NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION WORKERS
Some of the people who came to work as the Workers’ Center staff had aninterest in helping undocumented immigrants that arose from being raisedby undocumented parents. But the Center’s good intentions sometimes resulted in misunderstandings between staff and outsiders who tried to help
the Center. For instance, one jornalero, Ralph, told me that he felt he wasused by the Center because it wanted to use his network of undocumented
immigrants to communicate with the day laborer community.
Other jornaleros were willing to cooperate with and assist the Center.
They helped María and José recruit new members. They often visited street
corners on the northside of Chicago to recruit new members to the Albany
Park Workers’ Center, which had a low membership. A larger membershipwas needed to secure funding from donors. Donors often measured the efficacy of neighborhood nonprofit activities by looking at the number of coreusers and walk-ins. Because day laboring is seasonal business, it was very
difficult for the Center to maintain a stable membership. As a result, theFAIR PRICE FOR WHOM?

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Center realized that it had to continuously make available a constant numberof day labor jobs, otherwise jornaleros would not come to the Center andregister as members. Thus, the Albany Center advertised that employers
could hire reliable day laborers based on a fair price negotiated in the Center.
By attempting to recruit both jornaleros and employers, the Workers’
Center entered into competition with temporary employment agencies andthe day labor-hiring street corners. As José noted:
That corner [a street corner where day laborers were hired in Albany Park] hasbeen doing business [a place where contractors and day laborers can negotiate theprice of informal work] for fifteen to twenty years, and we just started ours [theAlbany Park Workers’ Center] a year ago [in January 2005]. It’s like competingwith the business which has a longer history than ours.7

Indeed, María and José had a difficult time persuading jornaleros of themerits of using the Center. Some jornaleros who had managed to survive fora long time in the competitive day labor market without help from others
decided that it made little sense to cooperate with the Center to find day
jobs. These independent-minded jornaleros knew that employers usually
hired day laborers on a first-come-first-serve basis and that only newcomers
needed help from outsiders.
This leads to the observation that, although the Center was deemed capable of securing fair wages and fair treatment for undocumented immigrants,
its actions left room for unintended consequences. Because the Center believed that securing jobs was vital for undocumented immigrants to establish
a stable life in the United States, its efforts were focused on finding any typeof work for the undocumented. As a result, less attention was paid to salaryand the quality of the work environment, and the Center focused on construing fairness as equal employment opportunities and equal treatment of all
jornaleros. In trying to promote this vision, the Center’s methods were
problematic. Because it advertised jornaleros as an alternative to street corner laborers it resulted in unconscious promotion of undocumented immigrants as a cheap source of labor.
GIVE ME A FAIR PRICE: CONTRACTORS
Most wages negotiated in the Albany Park Workers’ Center were paid on
an hourly basis. The hourly rates were generally determined by the comité dejornaleros but not always strictly enforced. The wage rate for plastering, forinstance, depended on the number of hours needed to complete a project. If

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the project could be completed within a few hours, jornaleros charged contractors between $12 and $15 per hour; however, for eight hours of work
jornaleros charged $120, equivalent to an hourly rate of $15. This wage-ratefluctuation sometimes frustrated contractors. Thus, contractors oftentimes
tried negotiating with more than one jornalero in the hope that some would
agree to a lower wage rate.
Contractors gave mixed responses with regard to wage negotiations. Peter, a homeowner in Albany Park, related his experience:
I found out about the [Albany Park Workers’] Center by a flyer posted on my car.
I decided not to hire them [jornaleros] because he [a jornalero hired from the Albany Park Workers’ Center] keeps changing the prices. I felt like he is trying to
rip me off. First, he told me that he would remodel the room [painting and carpentry] for $20 or $25 per hour and that it will take three days to complete thework. Then, he told me that he would do it for $800 in one day. And then, helowered the price to $750. The pay rate system is very inconsistent, and I wasvery suspicious about him. Besides, I was able to find someone who was willingto do it for $350.8

Many homeowners asked the Center to quote not just wage rates but toestimate the full cost, including materials, of a home improvement job before they hired day laborers. María and José were in charge of arranging
visits by jornaleros to homes to assess the work needed and to provide estimates. The jornaleros outlined the type of work needed to complete the project, evaluated the current conditions of the site, in other words the necessityof preliminary cleaning or other kinds of preparatory work, calculated thecost of materials, estimated the number of required project work days, andgave a complete cost estimate based on the foregoing. Since homeowners
typically did not have all the materials needed for a project, jornaleros often
purchased these materials on their own and received reimbursements. Sometimes homeowners refused to pay reimbursements and even wages. Although jornaleros sought help from the Center, the Center was sympathetic
to them but helpless about recovering the compensation owed to jornaleros.
The most notable response to my survey of homeowners was that many
expected to pay cheaper wage rates than by using an established home improvement business or a temporary-employment agency, which was viewed
as a third-party business that squeezed profits from both employers andworkers. In the minds of homeowners, lower prices meant fair prices because they were not going through a third party. Most homeowners also said
they believed they were helping poor people from Latin America by offeringFAIR PRICE FOR WHOM?

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them work.9 Against these homeowner expectations, however, jornaleros
often tried to negotiate higher, and to them, fair or market wage rates. As aresult, some homeowners believed they were being taken advantage of byjornaleros from the Center.
These observations provided by homeowners demonstrate that they weremore concerned about receiving fair prices than paying fair wages to jornaleros. It rarely occurred to them that they were taking advantage of jornaleros by paying lower than average wages. Some homeowners even refused to pay wages after a project was completed by finding minor faults inthe work. Most construed their offering informal employment as helping
poor Latino immigrants to financially support family back home.
LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR THE UNDOCUMENTED: JORNALEROS
Although the socioeconomic background of the jornaleros I studied in theCenter was diverse, there were some characteristics common to labor migrants from Central and Latin America. First, repeat migration is a common
practice. For instance, Alejandro, a Mexican jornalero, looked puzzled when
I asked him how long he had stayed in the United States. He told me that
this was his third time working in the United States and that he came to Chicago because his relatives lived in the city.10 It was natural for Alejandro tomove back and forth between Mexico and the United States because he hadseen other family members doing the same ever since his childhood. Thus,
Alejandro viewed the United States as simply a place for work but not as aplace for permanent residence.
Second, jornaleros inherited migrant cultural capital through kin andfriends. Migrant cultural capital is a form of capital that migrants use for immigration, settlement, and social adaptation (Faist 2000). As is often discussed in the migration literature, migrants relocate their family members toanother country in order to diversify the sources of the total household income. Ricardo, a Mexican jornalero, told me that his father and his neighbors in a Mexican community often worked temporarily in the United States
and that he decided to do the same as those around him. Ricardo said that itwas natural for him to do the same as his father because he had been familiar with immigrant labor practices since childhood.11 Thus, the jornaleros I
surveyed at the Albany Park Workers’ Center demonstrated one instance inwhich the accumulation of migrant cultural capital leads younger generations in the same community of origin to follow the path taken by older generations of migrant family members and neighbors. Last, democratic ideals

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served as the basis of labor solidarity in the Albany Park Workers’ Center.
Despite a number of obstacles, the Center was able to organize jornaleros, a
population that does not lend itself to political cohesiveness, because of theeffective use of democratic values. Ideas about democracy were imbued
through the Center’s leadership development program. Jornaleros were encouraged to conceive of democracy as something good and positive associatedwith equality, justice, respect, and freedom. The idea of American democracy would lead jornaleros to cooperative attitudes because jornaleros cameto the United States to enjoy freedom and justice. Thus, jornaleros construed
fairness as one element of American democracy, which they thought they
could enjoy in the United States but not in their native countries.
FIGHTING FOR WHOSE JUSTICE?: A CRITIQUE OF FAIRNESSDay laboring has been one of the major elements of the informal economy in the United States. Individuals who partake in this informal economic
sector have been predominantly undocumented worker immigrants fromCentral and Latin America. While they are typically conceived of as poor,
vulnerable, or illegal, desperate to get any kind of job available in the UnitedStates, some studies have pointed out that day laboring has an entrepreneurial aspect. Consequently, day laboring is a form of economic adjustment in
the host society when immigrants cannot obtain full-time employment in theformal economy. Leaving aside the illegal aspects of undocumented immigration, the question becomes: Is the economic adjustment represented by
day laboring beneficial for jornaleros?
In fact, some jornaleros explained that day laboring is a better option thanworking in a factory, restaurant, or hotel. I was told by jornaleros that theycan earn considerably more through day laboring because the income generated by it is tax free. Moreover, they have the freedom to decide which job
to accept or decline. Most important, they can more or less be their own
boss, unlike immigrant workers in a factory or restaurant who always havetheir performance monitored by supervisors.12 These responses resonate withsome of the attractive aspects thought to be associated with survivalist entrepreneurs (Light and Rosenstein 1995). Day laboring provides certain values—flexibility, autonomy, and independence—which are salient to somejornaleros who come from countries where bartering is accepted and expected. Given these characteristics of the jornalero working style, it may beappropriate to view day laboring as a new form of economic adjustment thatthe undocumented strategically employ in order to secure their living in theFAIR PRICE FOR WHOM?

225

host society.
This is how jornaleros achieve a form of economic survival and a way oflife that is acceptable to them. So what is the problem? The problem lies in
the fact that both workers’ centers (specifically, the Albany Park Workers’
Center studied here) and contractors believe that they are delivering social
justice to jornaleros by providing day labor employment, regulating the daylabor market through the systematic allocation of job assignments, and unilaterally imposing fair prices (from the point of view of the workers’ center
staff and contractors) on jornaleros. As noted earlier, one set of contractors,
homeowners, was concerned about receiving a fair price for themselves but
not about paying a fair wage to jornaleros. As for other kinds of contractors,
such as construction companies, they hired jornaleros because their wages
were much lower than union wages.13 At the same time, homeowners andconstruction contractors did not supply jornaleros with any safety equipment, such as hard hats or protective eyewear or masks, suitable to theirwork environment, thereby forcing jornaleros to accept more dangerous
working conditions compared with the conditions for unionized or properly
credentialed native U.S. workers.
The other part of the problem is that the Albany Park Workers’ Center did
not critically examine the social and cultural values that underlie the notionof fairness—the ways that fairness was conceptualized differently depending
on point of view ( jornaleros versus those who hire jornaleros). In the eyes ofCenter staff, fairness meant equal distribution of work opportunities, equal
treatment of people regardless of race or gender, and the duty to verify thereliability of immigrant workers who registered at the Center. The conceptual difficulty was that the subject of the Center’s efforts, the immigrant
worker who was supposed to enjoy the foregoing three components of fairness, was often denied fair treatment. Instead, it was the contractors who
often enjoyed these fairness components. Although the Center’s mission was
to recruit contractors by emphasizing the reliability of jornaleros and in thatway achieve worker justice, most contractors interpreted fairness as the opportunity to maximize their financial self-interest.
Moreover, the notion of fairness and justice encompassed an ideologicalaspect. The Albany Park Workers’ Center was more than just a hiring hall; italso functioned as a place where the traditional American values of equality,
freedom, and justice were imparted to jornaleros, in the hope that theywould become good citizens of their Chicago area community of residence.
Understanding the basic contours of American life was another importantskill the jornaleoros had to acquire in order to adjust to and survive in226

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American society. Because of a backlash against jornaleros or, more commonly in English, “illegals,” which was in part fueled by heated national
debates over the border control policies of the George W. Bush presidential
administration, it was imperative for jornaleros to moderate their conduct inpublic and demonstrate civic responsibility.
As a result, the Albany Park Workers’ Center has contributed to the creation of some misleading ideas regarding the hiring of jornaleros. Contractors believed that they were doing good for the sake of the undocumented
because they offered jornaleros the opportunities to earn meager wages. Although Center staff understood that the day labor program is a short-term
solution to the problem of economic survival, they rarely focused on thelong-term solution of finding ways of incorporating jornaleros into the formal economy. Of course, this option is not viable unless the U.S. government enacts an amnesty law and offers legal residency to millions of unauthorized migrants currently living in the United States. Nonetheless, theexperience of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 tells
us that the documentation of long-term residency and the demonstration ofgood conduct are crucial to acquiring legal permanent residency in the
United States. Thus, it becomes vital to establish good relationships withthese jornaleros and employers to learn how jornaleros can be folded into
the formal economy.
CONCLUSION
The growth of the informal economy is not a new phenomenon in the
United States or even in other developed countries. The World Bank reportsthat workers in the informal economy of developing countries who remit
wages back home account for between 25 and 40 percent of annual GDP indeveloping countries (World Bank 2010). This economic evidence indicatesthat the informal economy is indeed the major form of economy for developing countries. Moreover, because of the nature of an informal economy,
developing countries have been unable to establish an infrastructure to tax
wages. Informal work is a common and accepted practice in some countries
but, despite its large size, not in the United States. Because jornaleros andother undocumented workers in the United States are vulnerable to deportation, many of these workers shy away from contact with formal institutions,such as banks, hospitals, or even social service agencies. With this in mind,
workers’ centers have secured a position in the immigrant and labor organizing communities in the United States that enable them to guide undocu-

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mented migrants from under the table to the light on the table. While the Albany Park Workers’ Center and other workers centers have their failings,
they demonstrate possibilities for thinking about ways in which millions ofunauthorized migrants who help support American daily life can be provided with an acceptable, stable, and even legalized existence in the UnitedStates.
Workers’ centers are still a work in progress in the United States. They
strive to protect the economic and social lives of immigrant workers andhave had success in some communities across the country beyond what thisarticle has described. For instance, in 2005 the Latino Union of Chicago assisted in a legal suit against Home Depot (Ruzich 2006) and participated in
the media relations committee for the March 1 Anti-Immigration Protest
Demonstration in 2006 (Avila and Olivo 2006). However, the question of“justice for whom” that is intertwined with the mission of workers’ centers
has never been critically addressed in the current literature on their activities. The manifestation of fairness yields to conceptually contradictory positions, as in the case of the Albany Park Workers’ Center. On the one hand,
the Center aims to provide a safe place for jornaleros to seek day labor employment. On the other hand, it promotes itself as a place where “homeowners and contractors [can] meet reliable workers at a fair and affordable
price” (Latino Union of Chicago 2011). The question still remains: Is it afair price for jornaleros or for contractors? As long as jornaleros are informally hired, there is no doubt that they will continue to be treated unfairlyby those who hire them, despite the best of intentions by the workers’ centers. The difficult challenge facing the Albany Park Workers’ Center andother workers’ centers is to establish the social infrastructure that will help
facilitate the entry of jornaleros into the formal economy, while at the sametime mitigating forms of informal employment that disadvantage and harm
informal workers. It is clear that the discourse of “justice for workers” is dynamic, fluid, temporal, and frequently undergoes contextual changes. Although this article has presented a snapshot of this discourse, it is reasonable
to conclude from the evidence collected that workers’ centers play a vitalrole in adapting jornaleros to economic, social, and cultural life in American
society.
NOTES
1Fine outlines the characteristics of workers’ centers: (1) workers’ centers have strong ethnic and racial identification rather than industry or occupational identification, although one
can hardly ignore the fact that the same racial or ethnic group tends to concentrate in particu-

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SATOMI YAMAMOTO

lar occupations or industries; (2) workers’ centers identify themselves as part of global laborand social movements because some workers’ center founders have experienced labor organizing campaigns in their country of origin; (3) some workers’ center organizers maintain social ties with social justice organizations in their country of origin (Fine 2006, 417–63).
2
The protocol of this research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (IRB 05089). To protect the privacy of undocumented workers, I did not audiotape the conversations but instead took detailed written notes.
The IRB required me to use this data collection method.
3
Latino Union of Chicago, “Third Grant Proposal,” unpublished document circulated in
the Albany Park Workers’ Center.
4
Unpublished newsletters circulated in the Albany Park Workers’ Center, “History of theStruggle for the Albany Park Workers’ Center,” “Albany Park Workers’ Center First Anniversary Celebration,” and “Mission and History.”
5
Observation notes, September 16, 2005.
6
Observation notes, October 2005.
7
José, interview with the author, September 2005.
8
Peter, interview with the author, November 2005.
9
Informal conversations with homeowners, October and November 2005.
10
Alejandro, interview with the author, October 2005.
11
Ricardo, interview with the author, October 2005.
12
Pedro, interview with the author, November 2005.
13
Michael, informal conversation with a contractor, November 2005.

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