Service stations losing customers

01:33 PM CDT on Thursday, September 30, 2004

By Vicente Arenas / 11 News

He's tried loudspeakers, signs, even chasing them with a stick. But Marwan Almajali, a gas station manager in Southwest Houston, says the day laborers keep coming back.

"They attack every customer who has a truck or has a van," says Almajali. "They ask for daily work, labor. They ask to hire them."

Almajali says about 50 men show up every day from sunup to sundown. And while they get the jobs, he loses customers.

"You never know where these men come from or what they're doing here," says Nikki Navarro, a customer.

One worker said he chooses not to go to the city's day-labor site because there's not as much work there.

Still, the city says it helps. And two new sites are on the way.

"The way it's going to help is to bring the workers inside," says Benito Juarez, of the Day Labor Task Force. "That way it'll be an orderly process to be there, trying to get contact with employers so they can go to work."

The problem is some neighborhoods don't want day laborers standing around, either. So while the city has the money to set up other sites, it has to find neighborhoods that will take them."

For now, Almajali hopes the new centers come sooner rather than later. In the meantime, he'll try to lose the laborers and keep the customers.