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Published on 02/16/1998 All articles from this issue

Los Altos center a quiet labor source

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue

Town Crier Staff Writer

One of the best kept secrets in Los Altos is the labor supply right here in town.

As people begin cleaning up after the storms and getting ready for spring, one place to look for help is the St. Joseph the Worker Center on El Camino Real in Los Altos.

"We have quite a labor pool," said Elizabeth Fitting Keller, the executive director of the center. "If people call in the morning, we could have somebody instantly because we have people sitting here," she said.

The center opened in the fall of 1996, in response to the many men, mostly Hispanic, who were hanging out on street corners, looking for work.

A $67,000 grant from the El Camino Hospital Foundation, "was enough to get us going," Keller said. She is the second director of the center.

Workers come to the center beginning at 7 a.m. Monday through Friday and register, a five- to 10-minute process. Then Keller interviews the workers.

Every day 20 to 30 workers sign up for work. Of those, two to five are first-timers and go through the registration and interview process.

The center gives brief tips for on-the-job behavior. And the Mountain View-Los Altos High School District Adult Education program offers morning English lessons to workers who wait for jobs.

Now the task is to get "employers more educated to stop at the center and not along the road," said Layne Long, assistant to the city manager in Los Altos. Long serves on the 15-member board for the center.

Keller, who has been at the center since October, loves her job. After graduating from Barnard College in 1972, she spent 10 years in Mexico.

"I'd seen these women on the streets begging for food with their children and decided I wanted to do something for them."

But she put her dream on hold for 17 years while she, a single parent raising three children, worked at Stanford in several capacities.

Now at the center, "I love working with these people. They are so appreciative of the smallest thing you do."

Two workers brought in a cake for Valentine's Day. "And these are people who don't know if they'll have money tomorrow," she said.

"There's a sense of community here. Recently a man from El Salvador arrived with no money, no place to stay. By the end of the day he had money from other workers, a place to stay for a month with another worker, and a job for several months.

"The nice part," Keller said, "is not just that we helped him, but that other workers helped, too."

While workers inside wait for work, some outside create problems.

On Feb. 12, a caller reported to the police that a day laborer "was harassing a customer and seemed to be drunk." Police made an arrest.

"We don't send out anyone who's been drinking," Keller said. The center rules do not allow drinking. Alcoholics Anonymous meets three times per week at the center, with meetings in Spanish.

"There are always a few who drink when they shouldn't," said Sgt. Mark Macaulay with the Los Altos Police Department. He said the police have been out "a couple of times," working with the center, to talk with the workers who are still out on the street, about appropriate public behavior.

Some problems come from employers who fail to pay the worker by writing a bogus check or saying they will pay in cash, but don't.

"We wouldn't send anyone else if someone didn't pay," Keller said. "We deal with repeat employers, and we'd follow up."

As more workers come to the center and more employers use it for hiring, everyone benefits.

"The center really is starting to fulfill its purpose," Long said.

Center workers can do gardening, general clean-up, construction, housecleaning, child care or elder care and restaurant work, Keller said.

Employers provide worker's compensation insurance. The center does not ask about green cards. Suggested wages are $8 to $12 per hour.

St. Joseph the Worker Center is located at 4898 El Camino Real, Suite 300, on the corner of El Camino and Jordan Avenue.

For more information, call 962-1902.