7/21, Fruitvale: A small crowd of "business and community leaders" and City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente rallied against Oakland's Centro Legal, which has been organizing for day laborers' right to earn a living, and in support of the city's two-year-old anti-solicitation ordinance, which threatens contractors with $1,000 fines for picking up workers off the street. The rally also supported the Oakland Day Laborer Center and Volunteers of America, the Christian organization which receives city funding to run the center. Speaking about the Day Laborer Center he helped start 4 years ago, De La Fuente told the crowd, "We know that we need to improve, but I can tell you that Centro Legal has done more damage than any other Hispanic organization in the community. ... If you're going to use these tactics, you better leave town because we're not going to work with you." This was apparently De La Fuente's response to a meeting he had last week with day laborers and the Centro Legal, called to address escalating police intimidation and repression, ticketing of day laborer employers, and the city's new labor zoning policies, which deny day laborers the right to find work. Read more