New York City On $45 A Day (And That's If You're Lucky)

It's early on a cold December morning, and Diane Sawyer's irritating voice echoes off the white walls. "Okay, so it's one of those times of year when you're thinking about, ah, maybe I'll just call in sick today," she says. "After all, we're talking about the holidays...and it turns out sick calls are on the rise, especially this time of year." She hands off reporting to a Good Morning America correspondent, who investigates this growing trend, and whether falsely calling in sick can get a person fired (unclear, despite his digging).

No one in Labor Ready's office in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn has called in sick today, and none appear particularly interested in what Sawyer has to say. The back room where we are assembled is a bare bones, characterless setting -- DMV office meets emergency room waiting area -- with a coffee pot, two tables, and a number of cheap chairs. A black man is in the corner, watching a movie on a portable DVD player. Two others engage in low-volume bullshitting; the others are sitting down and staring at their feet or, like me, trying not to fall asleep.

At this hour, with nothing to do, it's not easy to remain conscious. Some of the people have been here since 5 a.m., hoping to increase their chances of finding work, which means they get to look forward to three hours of empty time before work orders start coming in. Three hours is a long time to listen to Good Morning America and read the signs management has taped to the walls, which include "Leave the bling bling at home" and "86 the doo-rags." I catch myself nodding off twice.

But sleep, along with doo-rags and baggy pants -- "If your pants don't fit don't bother to sit" -- is also forbidden. "Sleepyheads don't get work," a sign above my head reads. Another, less friendly, reminds us that "if you fall asleep you must leave." I shake my head and yawn, and decide to step outside into the biting air for a jolt of life.

The Labor Ready office is located beneath the Gowanus Expressway on 3rd Avenue, an industrial area that by 7:30 a.m. is already filled with noisy trucks and blue-gray exhaust. The Sunset Park branch is one of four New York City offices, where employers can find cheap labor for unskilled tasks like demolition, loading and unloading goods, and manufacturing. Today they employ about 600,000 temporary workers each year, and have 880 offices located in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and England. The result of all this activity, according to Labor Ready's website, is a "win-win": employers can save money and Labor Ready workers earn "an honest day's pay for an honest day's work."

Back inside it's nearly eight o'clock, but not many calls are coming in. I take a seat next to a Latino man that appears to be in his fifties. To my left is a chest-high cash dispensing machine (CDM) that is no longer functioning, thanks to a 7-0 decision handed down by New York State's Court of Appeals on November 16. In the decision, the Court ruled that by charging workers a fee to receive payment in cash, the CDMs violate an 1889 state law originally written to prevent companies from paying their workers in script, which could then only be used at company stores.

Labor Ready's CDM system is simple: a worker can decide to be paid in cash, and will receive a voucher and PIN number to type into the CDM, upon which they'd be charged a transaction fee of one dollar and whatever change amount was listed on their paycheck. So when redeeming a check of $20.95, the worker would receive $19.00 while Labor Ready would pocket $1.95.

Not bad, for doing nothing -- and it added up. In 2002, according to court documents, Labor Ready took in $8.3 million from their CDMs across the country. But in the Court's decision, Chief Judge Judith Kaye wrote that the "unequal bargaining power between an employer and an employee" should not result in a situation where "the employer can divert a worker's wages for the employer's benefit." And so this morning the CDM sits next to me, with a sign taped across it explaining simply that it is not in service.