Public policy briefings focus on issues distinct to California

  BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Local policy
expert Xandra Kayden speaks on term limits and
energy deregulation during a briefing on L.A. and state
problems.

By Kelly Rayburn
Daily Bruin Contributor

Looking for work, they congregate in empty lots and under
freeway overpasses surrounding the cars of potential employers.
Numbering in the tens of thousands, they are one of urban
America’s most challenging policy problems.

Assistant Professor of Urban Planning, Abel Valenzuela described
the conditions of day laborers on Thursday at the James West Alumni
Center.

Valenzuela was part of a public policy briefing that highlighted
research from the recently released “California Policy
Options 2001,” published by the UCLA Government and Community
Relations and the School of Public Policy and Social Research.

Los Angeles League of Women Voters President Xandra Kayden and
UCLA Economics Professor Werner Hirsch also spoke about their
essays in the publication. Daniel J.B. Mitchell, Ho-su Wu professor
at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management and SPPSR
moderated the event.

Valenzuela addressed the reality of a casual, primarily Latino
day-labor market.

“Day laborers are not going to leave the United States
anytime soon,” he said. “Day labor is a full-time,
year-round task.”

Valenzuela’s survey data showed the day-labor force is
nearly 100 percent men and the work they do is almost entirely
manual labor. Only 10 percent of them hold another job.

“This type of work is seen as last-ditch,”
Valenzuela said. “As we pass these groups of men, we comment
to ourselves, “˜Boy things must be tough for them to come out
here on a daily basis.'”

But while a large number of day laborers said they do not have
more formal jobs because of lack of documents and English
proficiency, nearly 10 percent said they work as day laborers
because the other jobs’ pay rates are too low. More than 70
percent of day laborers make under $10,000 a year, Valenzuela
said.

“Day labor doesn’t really pay, but it does compete
with other low-paying jobs,” he added.

While Valenzuela spoke about day laborers, Kayden addressed
other policy concerns, namely legislative term limits and the
initiative process.

Kayden said while Californians love the initiative process, it
may not be the best way to make public policy. She used Proposition
34, which passed in last November’s elections, as an example.
The proposition limited campaign contributions but set higher
spending limits than a previous voter-approved proposition.

People probably voted for Proposition 34, she said, because of
John McCain’s outspoken views on campaign finance reform.

“But all Proposition 34 really did was repeal other
campaign finance reform measures,” she said.

With the Internet making it easier to gather the necessary
number of signatures to get an initiative on the ballot, California
may some day have 100 initiatives on one ballot, Kayden added.

She said something would most likely be done before that was the
case, pointing out that in the last election, Oregon had 62
propositions on the ballot.

Kayden went on to criticize term limits, enacted by a 1990
California ballot initiative, within the context of the California
energy crisis.

“We can see this has had a profound impact. Most of the
stories we see are about assemblymen boning up, staying up late at
night to try to figure out the energy crisis ““ they
don’t have the system figured out yet,” she said.

With an eye toward economics, Hirsch addressed public versus
private sector accountability in L.A.

Contracting out municipal services to private organizations
““ or out-sourcing ““ can be cost-effective and most
local governments seem to agree, according to Hirsch.

But he also said governments have taken relatively few steps to
do this.

“Why is it that local governments, who are making so much
noise about out-sourcing, do not do so?” he asked.

The reasons, Hirsch proposed, are accountability and interest
groups.

Public officials, who take an oath to uphold the law, are more
likely to act in a scrupulous manner than are private firms who may
be motivated by profit, he said.

Certain jobs, those involving civil rights in particular,
therefore must be carried out by public officials, he added.

Outside interest groups ““ labor unions in particular
““ make out-sourcing difficult as well, according to
Hirsch.

Making the system more transparent might sway voters to support
elected officials, but there are obstacles created by outside
interest groups, he said.

Valenzuela also presented three possible options to deal with
the day labor issue.

“¢bull; The first is to leave the situation alone. This presents
public safety problems, though. According to Valenzuela’s
article “Controlling Day Labor: Government, Community and
Worker Responses,” many day laborers are aggressive in
seeking work, sometimes tapping on car windows or even opening
doors and taking a seat in cars.

Nevertheless Valenzuela said doing nothing “is a
reasonable policy intervention.”

“¢bull; The second is to prohibit day labor outright. But
Valenzuela said this policy is unrealistic. If one community
prohibits day labor, the laborers will simply move to another
community, he said.

“¢bull; The third is to set up day-labor centers. Establishing
day-labor centers would eliminate some of the safety issues, by
providing the workers a place to look for work other than a street
corner or lot.

But some day laborers like the raw, unchecked market, feeling
they have competitive edges over other day laborers, Valenzuela
said.

At such centers, job-seeking is less aggressive, and lotteries
to determine who gets to work are common.