Anyone have any problems with picking up a couple of day laborers for minor lifting jobs (load/unload)? It seems safe. But one of my friends is going, “Auntie Em!” I just need to move two items, and another friend will be there with a pickup truck.
Doesn’t seem to me to be a problem. I suppose it depends where you find them.
Yes, with someone there, and you do get to take body language and expressions into account when hiring. I’ve done it.
They are hoping for a full day’s work (and pay) if they can get it. It might be fair to let them know it will be a short job; or to pay them more per hour for a short job than a long one. Or hire a little later in the morning so they’ve already missed out on a full-day job.
Well if one of them happens to get injured, you could find yourself in a world of hurt. You might want to check with your homeowners insurance company about coverages.
Good points. The potential liability for a worker’s injury doesn’t sound good. Well, I found a couple of buff friends who volunteered. But I still might consider the day laborers in the future. Someone told me that their niece and her husband are making over 100k a year by being translators (Spanish/English) and liaison between day laborers and people/companies trying to hire them.
I’ve hired day labor when I lived in LA with no problems. There’s usually a “Foreman” around who speaks english and represents the laborers. He gets hired first. BE SURE you settle on the hourly wage and the number of hours to be worked. These guys were rugged and expected physical labor, but I explained the work they were to do anyway. Most of them did such a good job I paid their travel time also. Good People.
While it probably doesn’t apply to your situation, a lot of temp agencies also will provide day labor - a lot of distributors in my industry rely on them as a source of labor for peak demand situations, and they are usually very, very scrupulous about providing people with no criminal convictions, etc. Nonetheless, every so often, someone walks off with a bunch of free liquor; the lesson here is that you should personally supervise even the most competent-seeming day labor, since they expect no return contact with you. Of course, in your situation, you’re probably more worried that they’ll break stuff, but personal supervision (to see that they know what they’re doing) is the best cure for this as well.
My Dad’s friend has hired day laborors from an agency that specializes in day labor and he has been very happy with them. He needed a whole lot of stuff cleared out of his yard and these guys worked so hard that he gave them each a huge tip, though he wasn’t supposed to. He also let the agency know that these guys did a terrific job.