Bay Parkway Community Job Center marks 12 years of service
Program matches immigrant laborers with employers
There is a small trailer on the Bensonhurst waterfront where great matches are made every day. No, it’s not love matches we’re talking about.
The people who work inside the Bay Parkway Community Job Center trailer next to the Ceasar’s Bay Shopping Mall aren’t cupids. The matches they make are between employers and laborers. Private contractors seeking workers to do construction work, gardening, painting or cleaning come to the center and are matched up with laborers, usually immigrants, looking for jobs for the day.
The job center, which was the first of its kind in New York City, celebrated its 12th anniversary Friday morning with great fanfare, as laborers, contractors, community leaders and elected officials came together to mark the program’s progress.
Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito presented members of the Worker’s Justice Project, the organization which sponsors the job center, with a City Council proclamation, which the overjoyed members proudly held aloft like a championship trophy.