Labors Lost

"[If] I don't get three days this week I'm looking for storage," says Dave, a heavy set 40-year-old with a red baseball cap, to no one and everyone in the small smoking room. "I can't go back to the streets when I'm ready to leave. Who wants to sell me their number?"

Most of the dozen middle-aged men sitting at the two picnic tables ignore him. A few ask how much he's willing to pay.

"Give you five dollars tomorrow if I work today."

"Man, I ain't worked in four days. I got my own problems," says a thin black man. "Don't pull that jailhouse in here."

"I am serious," implores Dave. "I am almost gone and I got to move up to get another day."

"You may move up alright. Just kill us all and hope nobody notices."

It's 7:30 a.m. on a Monday morning. Seventy men – white, black, Latino – sit in the four areas of the Fort Worth Day Labor Center, waiting for contractors, home owners and apartment managers to begin coming in looking for day workers. Each of the men has a number. Those with the good numbers, 1-30, sit on folding metal chairs in the dreary dull white front room where the contractors enter. The rest of the men, with little chance of getting out that day, sit in a large room with cafeteria tables, two televisions, a magazine stand and a computer, the ante-room, where the 10-cent coffee is sold, and a fenced-in outer area is set aside for smokers.

If it's raining, less than a dozen men will get out. Electrical work, ditch digging, fence running, cement pouring, construction and lawn work isn't done when the weather is inclement. If it's a good sunny day maybe 30-40 guys will get out. Those who do may get lucky and work two or three days on a job. Once in a while somebody nails a month or two on the same gig. Those who go out come back in and move to the end of the number line again. The rest move up. Number 65 on Monday may be number 28 on Tuesday, and get out on Wednesday. Unless it's raining. Then number 28 may only move up three or four numbers. Rain all week and nobody works. Rent and mortgages don't get paid. End of the month guys are trying to move up slots by cleaning around the center to try to get that rent money together.

A lot of the guys have held full time jobs most of their lives. Some are here because they're casualties of company layoffs and at 45-50 they're not in real demand anymore. Others are new to the US, don't speak English and probably aren't using their own social security numbers. Some are casualties of their own personal wars with bad marriages, booze, drugs, an inability to deal with authority. A few of them are just drifting through, some just don't like regular work and a couple are a little crazy.

The combined skills they possess could build a city: cement workers, electricians, plumbers, jackhammer operators, heavy machine operators, tool and dye men, steel workers, painters, landscapers, designers. And as the economy does its imitation of an accordian the skills increase: When it's good and everyone who wants to work has plenty, day laborers tend to be less skilled. When it's bad and second jobs evaporate, day laborer skills expand. According to Warren W., one of people who run the center, right now the economy isn't good. "Lots of skilled people here now," he says. "You got a lot of fellows been looking for real work for months and who come in a few days a week just to make gas money to keep looking."

Gas money is about what they'll make: Few contractors come in offering more than $10 an hour and most offer seven or eight. If you get out twice in a week at eight bucks and do full days it only comes to $112, before Social Security is taken off. Still, it's paid by the day, so if you're feeding yourself or kids you can make do. And if you were looking for beer money, it'll work. Just so long as you don't come in smelling like it the next day – nobody looking stoned or smelling like beer or marijuana goes out. It's one of the rules they give you at orientation on your first day.