Leaders of the immigrant advocacy group CASA of Maryland say they would likeMontgomery County to create a day labor center specifically for women, citing growing interest from immigrant women in working construction, painting and other physically demanding jobs.
Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA, said 10 percent to 25 percent of those reporting for work at the county’s three existing day labor centers are female — and the numbers are growing.
“You can earn nearly double the wages here doing carpentry and painting than doing domestic work like cleaning on your own,” Maria Duque, 42, said in Spanish.
Many female day laborers come to the center for safety, as well.
“It’s better here than looking for work on the streets,” Elizabeth Fernandez, 33, said in Spanish. “The office staff keeps records of the address, phone number and names of any employers we leave with, so if we don’t come back or don’t get paid, they know who to contact.”
Fernandez and others said stories of women who are sexually harassed or mistreated after finding work on their own are common.
Even with the center collecting information from employers, Angelica Morales, 32, said she recently had a run-in with an employer who asked her to climb a ladder to paint something and then told her he enjoyed admiring her backside from below.
“I told him I was done working for the day, and I left,” Morales said in Spanish.
Many employers specifically ask for “the young and the strong male Latinos,” according to Wheaton day labor center employment specialists Anna Kaminski and Justin Shear.
“It’s very industry-specific,” Shear said. “Usually when a cleaning company comes in, they only want women, and usually when a moving company comes in, there’s no way they’ll take a female worker.”
Kaminski said the center fills jobs according to a list of when the workers arrived at the facility, but if a woman is next in line for work and an employer refuses to take her, it usually will pass the spot to a man on the list.
