Gregg Kettles's blog

Swap meets, or flea markets, have in recent times enjoyed a reputation as a place where one can find a good deal on collectibles, art, and antiques. Thanks to television programs like Antiques Roadshow, swap meets have become a kind of high-end retailer in outdoor markets. The recession has not only changed that, but also drawn attention to the flexibility of swap meets and open air markets generally.

Last week Los Angeles' public television station, KCET, broadcast a story on swap meets as part of its program, "SoCal Connected." Here's the link: http://kcet.org/socal/2008/12/thrift-economy.html

KCET Producer Vicki Curry told the story of how swap meets are feeling the effects of the economic downturn. People who have lost jobs have cut back on many things, including making payments for storage units, packed to the brim with goods purchased during good times. Units on which rent is not paid are subject to "foreclosure" by the storage unit facility. The units are opened and the contents auctioned to eager buyers. These buyers turn around to resell the items on ebay, at garage sales, and swap meets. These merchants of second hand goods have their finger on the economic pulse of America. High end merchandise is not moving much. Low end necessities are.

News media stories report that a decline in construction activity across the US has made life for day laborers, which was already hard in good times, even harder still. Many laborers have hit the road, going to places like Texas, that have not felt quite so much pain as the rest of the country. This mobility of day labor is nothing new-- it is one example of the flexibility of day labor, which helps explain its persistence as a labor market phenomenon.

But this mobility also highlights the difficulty of organizing day laborers to enable them to protect their common interests. Claims by individual day laborers that an employer has underpaid him or failed to pay him at all are sometimes abandoned. The stakes are too low to make it economic for an attorney to be hired to file suit. If an employer mistreats a number of day laborers in this way, the stakes are much higher. One attorney might represent a number of day laborers against a single defendant, and the higher stakes would justify the costs of hiring an attorney to take on this "collective action" or "class action."

Last night I attended a community forum put on by a group of taco truck operators in East Los Angeles. The group calls itself "La Asociación de Loncheros L.A. Familia Unida de CA." The forum was part food festival. Free fare was reason enough to come. I helped myself to seafood tostadas served up by "Mariscos Coliman," a truck that regularly does business on East Manchester between Juniper and Alameda, in an unincorporated part of LA county just west of South Gate. With plenty of lime juice, green onion, and just the right amount of tomatillo sauce, the tostadas were delicious.

The forum was about more than just giving away food. It was also about raising awareness of the positive contribution taco trucks make to our community and others across the state of California. Earlier this year, the County of Los Angeles tried to implement a new ordinance tough prohibitions against the operation of taco trucks. Fortunately, when the county sought to enforce it, the superior court of Los Angeles held the prohibitory ordinance to be invalid. One hopes that the County has seen the light and will let the trucks operate in peace, but one can't rely on hope alone.

Anyone can sell. You don't need to have a fancy cart and shrink wrapped goods to sell things outside. Nor do you need training in business or public safety. Turns out that all you need is a drive way and some things you no longer need.

With a 20 year boom having come to an end, folks everywhere are looking for quick ways to earn some extra cash. Having gorged ourselves on consumer goods for years, people are now looking to unload them. As I told New York Times writer Patricia Leigh Brown, "This is the perfect storm for garage sales." Ms. Brown wrote an article about the garage sale boom that appeared in the New York Times on Saturday. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/us/25garage.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=garage&st=cse&oref=slogin

Garage sales are another example of open air commerce. Such sales help demonstrate the virtues of selling things outside. Homeowners all over the country are avoiding middle men such as the pawn shop and second hand store and selling things themselves from their own property. The cost savings are passed on to thrifty consumers. It's a win-win for buyers and sellers alike.

Recently the ACLU announced the settlement of a dispute involving day laborers in the Orange County, California community of Lake Forest. That community had attempted, with the assistance of county law enforcement, to drastically to limit the ability of day laborers to solicit work on public sidewalks. Day laborers there are right to be encouraged by the settlement of their lawsuit, but celebration may be premature. While the settlement affirms laborer’s 1st Amendment right to solicit work from sidewalks, it also leaves county defendants with full authority to enforce laws regulating conduct, including those prohibiting jaywalking, double parking, and littering.

It remains to be seen whether Lake Forest will attempt to find another way to exclude day laborers, such as by simply lengthening the list of laws “regulating conduct.” This has been a favorite tactic of other U.S. communities who are hostile to street side solicitation by day workers. The City of Orange earlier this year made it illegal to solicit for work from sidewalks next to streets without parking lanes, medians or driveways on a public right of way. Marietta, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb, put the squeeze on day labor employers, changing the traffic rules to prohibit stopping a vehicle where day laborers congregate. These tactics are of questionable legality. They are certainly bad policy.