Birmingham News (Alabama), April 20, 2008, Sunday
Copyright 2008 The Birmingham News
All Rights Reserved
Birmingham News (Alabama)
April 20, 2008, Sunday
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A Vol. 121 No. 038
BYLINE: ROBERT K. GORDON News staff writer
BODY:
One question was on the minds of the men huddled around a fire one recent morning at First Avenue and 14th Street South: Would they find work that day?
After an hour of waiting, a truck stopped. The men - all day laborers who do bone-tiring jobs such as painting and landscaping - raced toward it, but only one won the prize of a day's work.
Just months ago, work was plentiful. But with the downturn in construction, day-labor jobs are more scarce now. And the influx of immigrants into the Birmingham area means competition for those jobs is greater than ever before.
For the black men gathered at First and 14th, known as ''Catch-out Corner,'' it stirred resentment.
''The Hispanics got us messed up,'' laborer Kevin Murray said.
Alabama's demographics are no longer statistics in black and white. Brown has been added to the mix as immigrant workers move here, and to other Southern states, to work.
The growth rates in the Hispanic population in Birmingham, and in Alabama as a whole, have been among the fastest in the country, census figures show. That growth has led to a burgeoning debate here that was once seen only in Southwest border states: Are Hispanics pushing blacks out of jobs, particularly low-skill jobs?
Earlier this month, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights hosted a forum to discuss the issue. Scholars agreed that immigration is indeed affecting job opportunities for AfricanAmericans, particularly the low-skilled worker.
Hispanic workers and their advocates say there are plenty of jobs to go around, but scholars who have studied the issue say there is no doubt that Hispanics disproportionately fill low-skilled jobs, especially in the Southeast.
Black workers aren't doing the landscaping, domestic, roofing and janitorial work as much as they did in the past, those scholars say.
''The foreign-born worker is now in the Southeast,'' said Vernon Briggs, a professor emeritus of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University who has published several books and papers on immigration. ''This has never happened before. They're all over the South, and the numbers are increasing substantially. The one losing out is the black population.''
Social scientists are intensely studying the issue, said Dr. Raymond Mohl, a professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Mohl said the question researchers are grappling with is this: Are black workers being displaced by cheaper labor, or are they being replaced as they take better jobs?
''What happened to those workers who used to do those jobs?'' Mohl asked. ''No one has a handle on that.''
A real issue
Whatever the reason, the issue is real to the men at Catch-out Corner who depend on day labor for income.
''This used to be a hot corner,'' Hosea Wilson said as he waited for a job prospect. ''What happened? You used to could come out here and catch out in five minutes. It's not as busy as it used to be.''
To a man, the laborers said potential employers are getting workers now in Hoover on Lorna Road, where scores of Hispanic workers line up every day.
Mohl said the roots of the issue for the South are in the Immigration Reform Control Act of 1986. The law made it illegal for employers to hire undocumented workers, but it also gave amnesty to the more than 2 million immigrants who had been in the country before Jan. 1, 1982.
''They were now moving all over the country, looking for work,'' Mohl said. That led to ''chain migration,'' Mohl said, with relatives from Mexico - legally and illegally - joining their kin already established in the States.
Free to follow the job market, Mohl said, Hispanics left the Southwest and came to places such as Alabama and North Carolina, where they found work in chicken-processing plants, resulting in a rapid rise in the Hispanic population.
Birmingham, with its generally stable economy and low unemployment, has become a magnet in recent years.
According to census figures, the Hispanic population grew 207 percent in Alabama from 1990 to 2000. That growth rate is not as high as in North Carolina, where the population grew by 393 percent, but is higher than in Mississippi, Virginia, Texas and Louisiana.
During that same period, Birmingham's Hispanic population grew by 318 percent, second only to Atlanta, census figures show. Census figures show the growth trend has continued in Alabama. According to the 2006 census estimate, Alabama's Hispanic population stood at 111,432, a 47 percent increase since 2000.
''The new migration appears to have some permanence as Hispanics are settling down in the South,'' Mohl said.
Difficult to come by
More immigrants moving in meant lowskilled laborers - often black men - found it more difficult to get work, Briggs said. He said immigrants work weekends and overtime without complaint. They don't complain about job conditions. That makes them attractive to employers looking for a hardworking, low-cost labor pool, Briggs said.
''Whoever was in that job is adversely affected,'' Briggs said of the hiring of immigrant workers. ''Employers love these type people. They take over jobs and push (American workers) into unemployment or to accept low wages.''
Robert Kelly, president of Trussville-based Kelly Construction Co., said there is work for anyone who wants it, but acknowledged that Hispanic workers are making inroads into the job market.
Melva Tate, Kelly's human resources director, said 22 percent of Kelly's 80 employees are Hispanic. The rest are evenly divided between blacks and whites.
The company recently held its annual training workshop in English and - for the first time - held a separate session in Spanish as part of the company's drive for diversity instead of having the one in English translated into Spanish.
''It is an issue, especially in our industry,'' said Kelly, who is also president of the African American Business Council. Kelly said it's not just a matter of Hispanics taking jobs, but employers having difficulty in finding good employees.
''Twenty years ago there wasn't as much competition. There was no Home Depot or Sam's Club,'' he said.
Given the choice of working in the air conditioning at Home Depot or working on a hot asphalt truck, American workers will take the course of least resistance, Kelly said.
The Hispanic worker, he said, is willing to take the more grueling job - and, once in a job, tends to stay.
''It only makes sense for an employer to want to attract and retain loyal employees. If they happen to be Hispanic, it's no slight to the American worker, black or white,'' Kelly said. ''Employers are finding success with Hispanic workers because these are entrylevel positions, and once they get there, they tend to be more loyal.''
'Work for everybody'
Juan Tista has lived in Alabama for a year. The Guatemala native speaks little English and doesn't have a steady job. He stands near the Chevron gas station on Lorna Road looking for work through day labor.
Tista said he and the other men do painting and concrete work. He said immigrants don't take jobs from blacks. ''There is work for everybody,'' he said.
Isabel Rubio, executive director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, said employers in the hotel and construction industries can't find enough workers.
''There are jobs out there. It's what are you willing to do to make money legally,'' she said. ''Not everyone wants to work that hard and be out there in whatever conditions.''
Educating the two minority groups is the key to breaking down barriers, Rubio said.
The coalition is working on programs that will bring blacks and Hispanics together to at least talk, she said.
Job competition between Hispanics and blacks is a complex issue, said Flavia Jiminez of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights group.
Employers often turn to immigrants, Jiminez said, as a way to cut wages and improve profits. That's especially true of illegal immigrants, who are not likely to lodge complaints about pay or working conditions, she said.
And that directly affects others competing for those low-skill jobs.
Hosea Wilson, one of the day laborers at Catch-out Corner, deals with the issue every day.
''Everybody thinks they (Hispanics) work harder, longer and cheaper, but we have skills just like they have skills,'' he said while waving at passing pickup trucks. ''We're all trying to eat.''
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News staff writer Erin N. Stock contributed to this report. rgordon@bhamnews.com
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