Day Laborers Fear Identity Theft

I had a chance to look at the local Indymedia site and found a rather interesting piece about day laborers in Cleveland. Apparently, there was a group of them working for the Minute Men Agency located at 9749 Lorain Avenue. The agency had the unpopular habit of posting a waiting list with each laborer's name AND Social Security Number. Somebody noticed and mentioned that the practice could lead to identity theft and destroy people's lives.

The Day Laborers' Organizing Committee (DLOC), a project of the East Side Organizing Project (ESOP), immediately took action and organized a protest. Workers were incited to start chanting "we're fired up, can't take it no more" and, although the article doesn't provide much follow up information, presumably everything was fixed.

What is difficult to understand is why these day laborers would be in the least bit concerned about identity theft. After all, they are hiring themselves out on a daily basis for minimum wage to perform defined short-term jobs as unskilled manual laborers. They typically don't possess a regular job nor a wallet bulging with credit cards nor a home with a mortgage. As such, theft of their identities would seem to be extremely low on their list of worries.

Don't get me wrong. Under all circumstances, I believe that a person's identity and personal information should be protected. In the case of the day laborers at the Minute Men Agency, however, the protest about identity theft seemed to be used more as a vehicle for the DLOC to make noise and get attention than it was to correct the problem.