Local Temporary Workers Concerned

By Sara Stewart, Reporter

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By Sara Stewart

Story Created: Jul 2, 2008 at 11:21 AM CST

Story Updated: Jul 3, 2008 at 5:58 AM CST

Temporary work companies arrived almost immediately after the floods.

They're hiring people on a day-to-day basis to clean out businesses like Smulekoff's downtown.

But they also brought people with them to do the work.

Now, some local people here are concerned they're losing jobs because of that.

First come, first to work means starting at five in the morning.

Men and women from in-state, out-of-state, and out-of-the country come here all looking for the same thing.

"I need to find a job. These guys are coming in, trying to take our jobs away,” says Tina Struchen.

Tina Struchen and her friends lost their jobs in the flood, now they're trying desperately to find work.

And failing.

“They keep telling me come back tomorrow,” she says.

The clean-up agencies say the people they bring initially are more skilled in flood cleanup than day-laborers and that now, most of them are gone and they're hiring local,but that's not entirely the case.

"In Pennsylvania is no work. So i'm coming from here I'm coming from work," says Juan Gomez.

Juan Gomez and these workers are paid one-hundred dollars a day for eight hours of work. That's 12 dollars an hour; well above minimum wage.

"Are they legal?”
“I filled out I-9 forms for all the people that are here which was an arduous task. I reviewed all their alien green cards, making sure they were supposed to be here. If they weren't I sent them away," says Russell

"I'm mexican.
Are you a citizen of the states?
Yeah," says Gomez.

Either way, people like Tina Struchen says she's frustrated people are taking jobs she needs.

“It kind of upsets me. We should get the jobs first I think,” says Struchen.

And that search will get more difficult as these jobs wrap up.

One company that hired 200 people now needs only 70.

Recovery Construction says it expects to clean out Smulekoff's for at least another eight days.

The price tag on that job is around three-hundred-thousand-dollars.

That's only for cleaning up, not for reconstruction.

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