NJ day laborers struggle in slumping market
March 30, 2009
Morristown -- It has been a long, cold season of waiting everywhere lately - for jobs, for the resurrection of the housing market, for any hints of thaw across these frozen, shrinking months - and this week on Morris Street it wasn't getting any warmer. Winter was supposed to be gone, but whatever was meant to follow hadn't arrived yet.
The men who hail from warmer climes had their hands jammed deep in the pockets of their jeans, sweatshirt hoods pulled up over their heads like monks' cowls. Standing in their usual clusters around the train station, they measured the passing vehicles for signs that a day's work might be beckoning from inside. But none were stopping.
Every morning here starting at about 7, the biggest overriding concern of the moment, the economic crisis, collides head on with immigration, the biggest concern of an earlier moment that is starting to seem like a long time ago. In the summer of 2007, this was the state's main battleground in the immigration wars, as police with riot gear faced angry advocates from both sides of the debate who held competing rallies on the lawn in front of Town Hall.
The New York Times
This entry is in the following archive(s): New Jersey | US
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