Salomon Pacheco is up early. Then again, he always is. At 6:30 a.m. Pacheco packs his tools and leaves his Valencia Street home for work. To his dismay, it’s raining – bad news for day laborers like him. It’s going to be a slow day.

By 7 a.m. the San Francisco Day Labor Program (SFDLP) on Cesar Chavez Street is already teeming with laborers. All of them, like Pacheco, are hoping to get hired today. Everyone arrives early to put their names on a sign-in sheet that determines the pecking order when employers call. Until then, it’s a waiting game. While the majority of the laborers stay inside the center and watch movies during downtime, Pacheco chooses to stay outside. Leaning his tall, sturdy bronze frame against the building, he chats with a few friends.

Waiting doesn’t help pay his $1,000 a month rent. While Pacheco is left to stagnate in the rain, his wife, Maura, works full time as a teacher’s aid at a daycare and his son, Carlos, works part time at an auto supply store.

“I have a wife and two kids,” says Pacheco. “I work, my wife works and my son works too. We all have to work.”

In the midst of nation-wide immigrant worker demonstrations and as the prospect of new immigration legislation heats up in the Senate, Pacheco just needs to pay the bills.

SFDLP, created in response to a campaign in the 1990s by a group of merchants seeking to ban day laborers on Cesar Chavez Street, acts as a liaison between day laborers and employers. The program ensures that laborers have living wages and promotes the health and safety of workers. Employers range from contractors to companies setting up events (like the jazz festival) or people who just need an extra pair of hands around the house.

According to the 2004 National Day Labor Survey, based on 2,660 day laborers in 20 states and the District of Colombia, about 75 percent of workers are hired at informal sites like in front of hardware stores or off the street. One in five day laborers search for work through centers like the SFDLP. Through this program Pacheco has gotten jobs doing everything from construction to dumping garbage.

But the jobs aren’t exactly the best paid. According to the survey, the average wage is $10 an hour. With those wages it’s unlikely annual earnings will exceed $15,000, keeping workers at the federal poverty threshold. That amount isn’t even enough to cover bare minimum living expenses in most San Francisco homes.

Figures like those make it easier to understand why more workers are turning to centers for job opportunities. The SFDLP makes sure laborers earn at least $50 for three hours of work. That breaks down to an hourly wage of $16.67.

Still, with the large number of laborers competing for jobs at the center, jobs are scarce. And the wet, rainy weather doesn’t help, either. By 8 a.m., the center is packed wall to wall with workers. Some try to escape the crowd and go outside. Others pace anxiously inside the building, hoping their name will be called next. With the rain not letting up anytime soon, everyone is on edge.

One of the laborers bursts into coordinator Roel Aguirre’s office. He is upset that the center will be closed the next day – Good Friday.

“God knows we need to work,” he says.

Pacheco usually only gets about two jobs through the center a month. So he and the other laborers have to find ways to supplement their income.

“I know it is frustrating for him because we don’t have any money,” explains Maura. “He waits in line all day, everyday hoping for jobs but he gets nothing.”

A large number of program participants use the center to find part-time work and have other jobs. Pacheco takes day laborer jobs in the mornings and also works part time at a restaurant during the evening. Often laborers can get part time jobs working through the program. Francisco Galindo, 44, turned a one day gig into a part-time job, where he works three days a week.

Pacheco and his family haven’t always lived paycheck to paycheck. Before moving to San Francisco three years ago, he and his family lived in Nicaragua. Both he and his wife have Bachelor of Arts degrees from universities there and Pacheco had a good job working as an electrical engineer. Then the situation took a turn for the worst. Pacheco was laid off due to old age (he’s only 50 now) to make room for the youngsters taking his job for lower pay, a practice Pacheco’s wife says is commonplace in Nicaragua.

“The economic situation is really bad there,” Maura explains. “Thank God we are here. We don’t have a lot of money but we have a roof over our heads and food to eat.”

Many day laborers specialize in a particular field. Pacheco and fellow program participant Nestor Magana’s expertise is construction. Magana is particularly skilled in working with sheet rock – training he picked up while fixing old buildings for Section Eight, an affordable housing program run by the San Francisco Housing Authority. Now he works as a coordinator for the program, training people how to work with sheet rock.

“People think that we (laborers) don’t have any skills, but that is not true,” Pacheco asserts. “We like this type of work and we have experience. This is our job. Papers or no papers.”

Day laborers often suffer some form of abuse – ranging from unpaid wages to inhumane working conditions. In the two months prior to being surveyed, nearly half of the laborers experienced at least one instance of wage theft. Forty-four percent were denied food and water breaks. One in five suffered work related injuries. In addition to the listed findings, workers also reported being insulted, arrested, and cited by police while searching for employment.

Aguirre says at their location in the Mission, even though the area is really diverse, they still receive complaints from neighbors. They don’t like the laborers loitering outside on the sidewalk, even though it’s public property. He says he receives a call almost daily from one woman who resents the program and it’s visibility.

“White people don’t really like us gathering around here,” says Pacheco. “We’ve got Latinos, African Americans, Asians – lots of minorities living here [in the Mission district] and they don’t mind. But I think it really bothers [the white population].”

There’s a sense of community at the center after being bombarded not only by the neighborhood complaints but by national legislation. New bills in the Senate could wipe out the hope for better jobs or worse – making it a felony to hire day laborers.

“We’re so worried about that because we don’t know what will happen,” Maura says. “They’re trying to criminalize people that come to this country and work. We’re just trying to survive. We’re not doing anything wrong.”

CONTACT TURNER AT KTURNER@SFSU.EDU