Turf battles: the presence of day laborers at the Home Depot's parking lot stirs controversy in Cicero.

Around 7:30 a.m. on a cold November day, about 40 day laborers with attentive eyes, layers of clothes and marked-up boots gathered in a nearly empty parking lot in front of Home Depot at 28th Street and Cicero Avenue.

The parking lot is a popular gathering spot for workers looking for temporary jobs--typically in construction, landscaping and moving--from local contractors looking for extra sets of hands.

Donald Quintanilla, a 35-year-old Nicaraguan sporting a navy cap, had been frequenting the spot for more than a year. "I have my wife and three children to support back home," he said through a translator. "I send them money, as much as I can, every month."

But, in August, one of Quintanilla's routine visits to the spot put him in trouble with the law. After Home Depot's complaints, Cicero police arrested him for criminal trespassing. The charge was eventually thrown out in court, but the experience was humiliating, he said. "I think the arrest is unjust because, at that moment, I was just waiting for my boss to pick me up--nothing else," he said. "Home Depot has to find another way. We have to negotiate because this is where the work is, and we have to be here to find it."

Home Depot representatives did not return repeated calls for comment.

Despite the risk of another arrest, Quintanilla keeps coming back to the parking lot in this largely Latino community. He says he can't find contractors elsewhere.

Such is the plight of day laborers, many of whom immigrate to this country in search of better pay. They congregate near Home Depot, the nation's largest home improvement chain, hoping to draw the attention of contractors who come to purchase supplies. They also favor other retailers, like Lowe's--or McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts and 7-Eleven, where contractors often get their morning coffee.

But, for these laborers, a company can be a friend or foe, experts say. In Los Angeles, for example, one Home Depot is making a section of its parking lot available to laborers, according to Chris Newman, legal programs coordinator for the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Elsewhere, Newman says, some store managers have little understanding of the issue, and that leads to dashes between the parties. "While no solution is perfect, empirical evidence suggests that repressive measures are the worst response. Workers inevitably return, and tensions run high," he said. "If the store managers knew an alternative existed that would serve most people's interests, they would do it."

In Cicero, 40 laborers, including Quintanilla, have been arrested this year. The tension reached a boiling point during the summer, when many of the arrests were made.

Advocates for the workers responded to the arrests by staging a series of press conferences in protest. "People were outraged," said Jessica Aranda, executive director of the Latino Union of Chicago, which works to protect the rights of day laborers. "All [the workers] are doing is meeting up with customers of the Home Depot that were hiring."

According to Jim Fennerty, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild's Chicago chapter, the court has so far thrown out the cases for 32 workers because Home Depot representatives failed to show up and testify. Fennerty said he believes Home Depot was betting that the arrests would keep workers away. "But these people are desperate, so they're going to come back," said Fennerty, who along with another attorney is representing the arrested workers on a pro bono basis. "I don't think they're doing harm to anybody."

But Susan Tully, national field director for the Washington D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, says police should be taking a tougher stance against the workers. "These people gather and distract people wanting to buy products there," said Tully, who maintains that most of the laborers are undocumented immigrants, who have no right to work in this country. "[The lack of police presence] just encourages lawless behavior."

For two years, Jose Saldana, 37, has been finding demolition, painting and roofing work at the Home Depot parking lot. He goes there everyday around 6 a.m. and makes about $80 to $100 a day in cash, he said. "There is no other work," said Saldana, who sends part of his wages back to Mexico to support his wife and four children. "This is the work."

A few minutes later, a white Budget truck pulled up nearby. About 20 day laborers swarmed the vehicle, some hanging from windows to fred out if work was available. Some men did not join in the commotion and continued to mingle in their groups of twos and threes. Others leaned against the wall of a nearby McDonald's.

For the last 10 years, similar scenes have been playing out countless times in Cicero.

Dan Proft, town spokesman, said officials have been trying to stay neutral on the issue. "We respect the interests of day laborers, who are trying to feed their families and find work. But, at the same time, our police are sworn to protect everybody--which means Home Depot and [its] patrons," he said. "We didn't take a side, but we wanted to see this facilitated."

But no dialogue has taken place because Home Depot has been unresponsive, Proft said. He left a phone message in August telling company officials that they should not expect the town "to be very sympathetic to your situation if you're not even willing to engage in dialogue with us." He hasn't heard back since, he said.

Jose Gonzalez, deputy superintendent at the Cicero Police Department, said police were only responding to complaints when they arrested laborers for criminal trespassing--a misdemeanor.

The laborers say what they want is simply to work to support their families. Juan Carlos, a 20-year-old from Mexico, takes a bus from southwest suburban La Grange six days a week to get to the Home Depot parking lot. Carlos immigrated here two years ago with his brother-in-law, and first found work near Home Depot about six months ago. "Sometimes, I think that being with my family is even more important than money, but we have to survive, so that's why I'm here," said Carlos, who sends money back home to help his parents and two siblings.

The workers say they would like permanent jobs, but none can match the money they earn now.

In the Chicago area, there are seven street corners where day laborers are known to gather as early as 6 a.m., says Aranda of the Latino Union. Some corners attract as many as 300 workers per day--most are men, ranging from teens to those in their 60s. Many are immigrants from Poland, Mexico, and Central and South American countries.

To aid laborers, the Latino Union helped establish a workers' center last year in Albany Park, on Chicago's Northwest Side. Inside, posters display wages for many jobs as well as information about construction and safety workshops. The center also offers English classes and has a rule mandating all contractors to sign written agreements to help stem wage theft.

In Cicero, such a center doesn't exist, but workers are finding some comfort in the fact that no arrests have been made at the parking lot since August. Deputy Superintendent Gonzalez said Home Depot has stopped firing complaints despite the continued presence of the laborers. He said he did not know why.

Aranda said it was more than a coincidence that the complaints have stopped since the controversy began garnering press coverage, and suspects that the company is discouraged by the amount of support workers have received. "Any kind of negative publicity, especially coming from the Latino community, I don't think is in their best interest," she said.

In August, Donald Quintanilla was arrested for criminal trespassing while he looked for a job at a parking lot of Home Depot in Cicero. Photo by Alex Kedler.