Home Depot and Day Laborers

The Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote on an ordinance requiring home-improvement stores, such as Home Depot, to protect order and safety when day laborers gather in their parking lots looking for work. The ordinance is primarily aimed at Home Depot, which has 11 stores in Los Angeles and would like to open at least a dozen more. It would require new or renovating stores to have a plan for what to do when the day laborers show up, as they almost always do when Home Depot moves in. The solution is basic prevention, and could be as simple as setting up an area somewhere on store property with shade, toilets, drinking water and trash cans. But, opposition to the plan is strong as on headline read: “Lounges for Laborers?”