They clean houses.

They serve up your hamburgers and ring up your purchases at the store.

They hammer and mix concrete and care for children and pick produce in the fields.

And most can't afford to get sick or injured or take a day off, even on Labor Day.

They're laborers in New Mexico, the working poor, both documented and undocumented.

"If these people go to the hospital, then if they are without insurance, they're faced with a huge bill and monthly payments," said Len Montoya, a former union president and a city employee. "For someone who is at minimum wage or a self-contractor, that's food out of their kids' mouths right there."

And if they get injured, many have no workers' compensation or health insurance to cover the expenses, much less paid sick leave. Workers' compensation is not required for domestic employees (such as in-home child care workers and house cleaners) or farmhands in New Mexico. Employers of fewer than three people also aren't required to carry workers' compensation in the state.

Elizabeth Bunker, a counselor at César Chávez Elementary School, where 85 percent of the almost 600 children live below poverty level, sees the results of the daily struggle. Many of the kids only eat when they are at school, she said. More than once she's run down to Walmart to buy a child a decent set of clothes.

"We have three families that just had their electricity turned off," Bunker said. "One dad had lost a job, one was injured on the job and the other — we're not sure yet what happened. What scares us is we always find out about these things by accident. Suddenly a kid isn't doing his homework. When you get him alone, it turns out he couldn't do it because the electricity was turned off."

Even children born in the U.S. who have Social Security numbers aren't always able to get the health benefits they're entitled to through Medicaid. "Many of the people we work with are not used to so much paperwork. It is hard if you are working two or three jobs to get to a Medicaid appointment. If you miss, you lose your enrollment."

Many of the moms Bunker knows have no vacation time or sick leave through their jobs. "If they miss a day, they don't get paid," she said.

"The parents sound very discouraged," she added. "If nothing else, it is exhausting to work 15 hours a day. And, of course, there's the guilt over not being with their children."

Some of the laborers are the men who gather daily at the park sandwiched between the New Mexico Department of Labor and the Santa Fe River, hoping for a day job landscaping or building. Currently, those jobs are few for documented or undocumented laborers.

Rito Peña, a Mexico native who became a U.S. citizen in 1996, stood in the park Thursday holding his free coffee, courtesy of the all-volunteer group Amigos del Parque. Peña said he's worked in construction most of his life and had no problems until last year. Between the bad economy and a shoulder he hurt on the job, he hasn't had much income. He estimates he's spent $4,000 out of his own pocket in the last year trying to heal his shoulder. "I can work three or four hours, and then I can't lift it beyond here," he said, raising his arm to shoulder height. "It catches. It hurts all the time."

Peña has been to doctors and chiropractors in Santa Fe, El Paso and in Mexico, all for naught, he said. "They don't know what's wrong. They just know how to take my money. And I don't have any."

One doctor told him an operation was required to fix the shoulder, he said, and he simply doesn't have money for that. As a day laborer in construction, he's a subcontractor, responsible for his own insurance. He said he didn't qualify for workers' compensation, which would have paid for some of his medical bills and put a little in his pocket.

"I want my arm cured so I can work," Peña said.

Luis Hernandez, who's been in Santa Fe for 11 years, working various construction jobs, said most of the people who hire day laborers don't pay workers' compensation for the part-time, temporary jobs. "When (laborers) get hurt, they don't have any way to get help," he said.

Whether someone is a documented or undocumented worker, Santa Fe attorney Daniel O'Friel believes the person should receive basic health care and help when they're injured on the job. "The strength of the nation is built on the people who work here," said O'Friel, who has represented workers for years. "Our strength as a democracy is bound to the ability of the law and the benefits of the nation to reach the least among us."

One of the people he's representing is an undocumented Mexican national who lost parts of three fingers on his left hand working as a carpenter for a homeowner. O'Friel claims the homeowner had more than three people working on the house, which under New Mexico law would require workers' compensation.

O'Friel's family came from Scotland via Canada and simply walked across the border into the U.S. back when there was no border control. His grandfather was a coal miner in the Appalachian Mountains at a time when there were no unions, no workers' compensation and no medical insurance. "If someone got hurt in the mine, they were hauled out and sent home," he said.

He believes all people should have help paying for health care and job injuries, regardless of how they arrived in the U.S. "Yes, there is an immigration law and people ought to abide by it. But, that said, once someone is here, they should be helped if injured," he said.

Across the nation, the debate rages over health care — who should be covered and who should pay for it. Len Montoya, who worked for a few years as an uninsured, nonunion electrician, now has a job with insurance benefits in the city of Santa Fe's water division. "I know what it is to work with no insurance," Montoya said. "If you are here, you should be entitled to health care benefits in some form and fashion."

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.

LABOR DAY FORUM

Somos Un Pueblo Unido is sponsoring an immigrant workers' rights forum from 6 to 8 p.m. today at the group's new office, 1804 Espinacitas St.

The community forum will cover immigration reform, new state protections against wage theft, how the health care debate affects immigrants and workers' rights. For more information, contact Marcela Diaz at 505-670-9301.

Somos un Pueblo Unido is a New Mexico membership-based immigrants' rights organization.

MEDIAN INCOME LEVELS IN SANTA FE COUNTY

Agriculture workers, 2008: $24,904
Cashiers, 2008: $21, 327
Construction laborers, $2008: $24,598
Wait staff: $17,865
Per-capita income in the county based on most current business survey, 2007: $42,184

Sources: The New Mexico Labor Analysis Statistics and Economic Research, New Mexico Department of Labor