Day Laborers and Jornaleros: A Book Reading by Dick Reavis and a Presentation on Local Day Laborer Organizing

Day Laborers and Jornaleros: A Book Reading by Dick Reavis and a Presentation on Local Day Laborer Organizing

A representative of the Houston Interfaith Worker Justice day laborer wage recovery project will give a short presentation about local organizing efforts in Houston and opportunities for volunteers to get involved. The presentation will be followed by:

Catching Out: The Secret World of Day Laborers
A Reading and Signing with Dick J. Reavis

Sunday, Feb. 28, 7:30pm
Sedition books (901 Richmond Ave.)

You have undoubtedly heard of them, Labor Ready, Volt, Labor Finders, Adecco are some of the names. You can check in the Yellow Pages under "employment, temporary" and find probably two dozen halls similar to those spoken about in this book. Seasoned journalist Dick Reavis reported to a labor hall each morning, hoping to "catch out," or get job assignments.

Written with the flair of a gifted portraitist and storyteller, Catching Out describes Reavis's jobs at a factory; as a construction and demolition worker, landscaper, road crew flagman, auto-auction driver and warehouseman; and several days spent sorting artifacts in a dead packrat's apartment. On one pick-and-shovel job, he finds that his partner is too blind to see the hole they're digging. In each setting, he describes the personalities and problems of his desperate peers, the attitudes of their bosses, and the straits of immigrant coworkers, so many of whom make up the three-million-strong day-laborer poor.

This is a gritty, hard-times evocation of the men and women on the bottom rung of the American workforce. It is partly a guide to performing hard, physical tasks, partly a celebration of strength, and partly a venting of ire at stingy and stern overseers.

Dick J. Reavis is an award-winning journalist, educator and author. He was active in the civil rights movement in the South and with SDS at the University of Texas in Austin. He wrote for Austin’s underground newspaper The Rag, and was a senior editor at Texas Monthly magazine. Dick Reavis is also the author of The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation, about the siege and burning of the Branch Davidian compound