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Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Temp
agency asked to leave
By
Scheri Smith |
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| Residents of Audubon Park and the
surrounding area have asked the operators of a temporary employment
business to move out of the neighborhood. At a community meeting last week coordinated by Metro Councilman Jim King, residents voiced concerns about Labor Works -- a business that provides temporary employees to companies for light industrial work, such as cleaning construction sites. Labor Works, which has been at 2600 Preston Highway since 1992, has 14 locations throughout the country. The Preston location is the company's headquarters, said Sean Fore, chief operating officer. "This is where it all started," Fore said at the meeting. "We really want to be good neighbors." Fore said he would consider neighbors' concerns and is willing to determine if moving the Preston location would benefit his business. But he said Labor Works' lease doesn't run out until 2010. King, who represents the area, said people have complained that Labor Works attracts vagrants who litter Preston Highway with broken liquor bottles. King said workers who do not pass daily breathalyzer tests at Labor Works are turned away and sometimes end up hanging around the neighborhood. "I understand you're in this to make money, but you're in the wrong location," King said at the meeting. "If they're not good enough for you, then they're not good enough for us and we don't want them in our neighborhood." No temporary workers were at the meeting. Some residents and officials said the business should move to a more industrial area, away from residential neighborhoods. Fore told residents that Labor Works gives people a chance to work and has placed more than 6,000 in permanent positions. He also said the company spends 20 hours a week picking up trash along Preston. Labor Works supplies companies with laborers for all shifts. After completing a job, workers return to the main office where some receive a check for the day. Other are paid weekly, Fore said. He admitted at the meeting that some workers then cash those checks at a nearby liquor store and sit outside and drink while waiting for a bus. The company once picked up a majority of its workers from homeless shelters, but that rarely happens anymore, Fore said. He also said the company takes second-shift workers home to discourage them from being in the neighborhood at night. Workers who hang around in the evenings are the ones who cause problems, said Rhonda Henning, a member of the Belmar Neighborhood Association and the Preston Highway Planning Group. Henning said workers sometimes urinate outside because there are no bathrooms available to them after they leave Labor Works. Henning said such behavior is more of a concern now because the Preston planning group has been making improvements to that portion of Preston Highway to encourage more pedestrian traffic. "I respect how hard they work, but it does make it difficult to walk in that area," Henning said. The planning group is a coalition of neighborhood groups and small cities that have worked over the past few years to revitalize Preston Highway between Hess and Phillips lanes. Not everyone at the meeting was against Labor Works. Paul McFarin, who lives on Lucas Avenue and travels the areas in a mobility-assisting scooter, said he's had no problems. "I'm going to have to support you some," McFarin told Fore at the meeting. "This is still America." Other concerns about Labor Works included workers sleeping in the area overnight to wait for work in the morning. Steve Miller, an Audubon Park City Council member and former mayor, said he has broken down "shanty towns" built behind the Labor Works building and surrounding businesses. "Your people don't leave in the evenings," Miller said. "They stick around." Fore said that a majority of workers are simply trying to earn a living and that only a small percentage causes problems. "We're not bad people," he said. "They are very basically solid people." Reporter Scheri Smith can be reached at (502) 582-4133. |
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