Wednesday What The What: Day Laborers

Day laborers waiting for a job

We see them everywhere, easily recognizable in their dusty construction boots, torn jackets and messy sweatshirts. They sit or stand in groups, sometimes for hours and sometimes for days, just waiting to be hired doing any type of manual labor.

For licensed contractors, they might be scabs. For friends, family, and other community members they might be the main breadwinners.

The highly contentious issue of day laborers, their poor wage and poorer work conditions, is today’s What the What.

Take a moment to sound off about this commonly seen Bensonhurst occurrence, what do you think of day labor work?

“Wednesday What the What?” is a new photo feature looking at odd, weird and interesting things in the neighborhood. If you have photos of what the what happenings in Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Dyker Heights or the surrounding areas send them to lvladimirova [at] bensonhurstbean [dot] com.