Home » About » Newsletters » September 1998
ACLU Works for Miami Day Laborers
By Jessica Connor
Editor/Public Education Coordinator, September 1998
Manuel Orosco came to the United States from Nicaragua hoping to find a better life, a place where he could find enough work to feed his wife and three young children. Instead, Orosco, an unskilled laborer, found long lines and scarce employment. After spending months filling out applications and being told "we'll call you," Orosco was forced to find work the only way he knew was guaranteed he took to the streets, joining hundreds of other Miamians hoping to find work.
"This is the work that nobody wants to do," says Orosco. "Trabajo p‚simo" the hardest, most undesirable work possible. For $20$50, Orosco explains, employers will cart van loads of men off to do roofing, forklifting, carpentry or trenching, all under the hot Florida sun. "99 percent of the time we can find work this way," says Orosco. "We have to eat."
But in 1993, MiamiDade County and City of Miami police officers began arresting day laborers like Orosco under a County ordinance prohibiting "loitering for purposes of temporary employment." Approximately 500 arrests were made under the ordinance since its enactment in 1993, and all of the persons who were arrested are Hispanic males, who were arrested by Dade County and Miami police in a four square block area near Southwest Eighth Street between 74th and 76th Avenues in Miami. These men were identified by the police as "undesirables," many of them arrested simply for standing on a street corner or talking about work. Orosco says he was arrested several times.
Julio Molina, a day laborer, says that he was arrested when undercover police, posing as employers, pulled up in a van saying that they needed ten people to work immediately at $10/hour. Molina jumped at the chance.
Once in the van, however, Molina and the nine other laborers were handcuffed. "They said they were police officers and told us, 'You have been arrested for seeking temporary employment....' Even the judge laughed. He said, 'Why are you arresting these people when they are just looking for work?'"
In 1993, in response to the discriminatory and illegal practices of both the City and the County, the ACLU of Florida filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the hundreds of laborers who had been arrested (Torres v. Metropolitan Dade County and the City of Miami). The lawsuit charges that arrests under the ordinance violated the day laborers' First Amendment rights, and constituted illegal race and national origin discrimination.
In September, after nearly six years, the ACLU and the County reached a settlement, agreeing to pay up to $998,000 to the day laborers who are members of the class action, based on a calculation of $2,000 per arrest, as well as attorneys fees. The settlement is subject to final approval by U.S. District Court Judge Ursula UngaroBenages.
"This type of law enforcement is something you might expect to find in a third world country," said ACLU of Florida Legal Director Andrew Kayton, one of the attorneys in the case. "These people were arrested for looking for work not because they were doing anything wrong or criminal. They represent a segment of society that many people would prefer not to see."
The case is continuing to be litigated against the City of Miami, which has not followed the County's lead in settling the lawsuit. The ACLU's attorneys for the case include Kayton and volunteer cooperating attorneys Dione Carroll, Sydney Smith and Rosemary Furman.
Meanwhile, Orosco and hundreds of other men like him are back on the streets again, looking for work in the hot sun, safe in the knowledge that they can look for work without fear of being arrested.
