Crime Waves and the Labor Pool

With Grove Under Siege by Burglaries, Commissioner Proposes Criminal Background Checks for Construction Workers

By Ryan Brown

Some concern is being raised by many Coconut Grove residents about a “crime wave” taking place in their neighborhood in the past year, and they are making their voices heard. They believe the inflow of construction workers to Grove building sites is the cause of the rise in recent crime.

Many of these complaints were made to the Cocoanut Grove Village Council, a local advisory board that makes recommendations to the Miami City Commission on behalf of Coconut Grove residents.

“For the past year, the Village Council has been talking to [All Grove] Crime Watch about incremental crime where there’s construction,” says Gary Hecht, Village Council chairman and All Grove Crime Watch member. “Police discovered that there was an increase in crime around construction sites in the Grove and, more often than not, crimes were being committed by workmen.”

Most of these crimes, Hecht says, are burglaries.

“A lot of the people being hired to work on these sites are day laborers. People just pick them up off the streets, pay them in cash and they’re gone after the job is done,” says Hecht.

This concern made it to the Miami Commission at its most recent meeting on March 22. Coconut Grove’s representative, District 2 Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, suggested drafting a resolution before the next commission meeting that would require background/criminal history checks of all construction company employees before they are allowed to work.

“I’m not suggesting that a convicted felon should not be allowed to work. I’m merely suggesting that an employer of a previously convicted felon, or much worse, a pedophile … that there’s awareness that they’re hiring these people,” Sarnoff said.

Commissioner Sarnoff added that his idea is not “intended to get into any immigration matter.”

But a law requiring background checks of construction workers was met with stern criticism from District 5 Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones, who represents Miami’s most impoverished areas.

“For my community that just does not work,” Spence-Jones said. “I think this can be used as a tool to prevent people from getting work. A lot of those people building houses in that area are ex-offenders.… Just because they’ve been convicted of a crime doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to lay brick.”

Others argue that this is not the issue.

“Overtown residents can’t get on the construction sites now, so I don’t see how this would be a problem for them,” said Overtown resident and activist Irby McKnight. “Without the background check they’re still not working on these sites. Ninety percent of Overtown’s construction workers try to get day labor jobs. I see them every day with their hard hats and steel-toed boots, sitting outside my office all day because the day labor pool didn’t have a slot for them. The workers are telling me that undocumented [immigrant] workers are being hired to save money.”

According to Tom Matthews, a spokesperson for the Construction and Craft Workers Local 1652, Grove residents may be partly to blame.

“I do think background checks should be mandatory,” Matthews said. “Unfortunately, this is where people get their cheap labor — from these undocumented workers.… A lot of rich folks, people who live in wealthy areas like Coconut Grove, are responsible for this problem; they get these workers to come in and do all this work on their homes cheaply. All our workers [union workers] have had background checks; we know who they are and they can be easily accounted for.”

The Miami City Commission agreed to further discuss the issue of background checks for construction workers at its next meeting.

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