Seven months after Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf Coast struggles
with a new challenge – who will do the rebuilding? The region is
awash in clean-up and reconstruction projects, but with more than
1.5 million people displaced by the hurricane, ready hands are in
short supply.
In many areas, the tight post-Katrina labor market has already had
stunning effects – construction jobs regularly advertise starting
pay of $15 an hour or more, and a gig at Burger King might land
you a $6,000 bonus.
But even with tight labor markets, workers in the region are finding
conditions – and organizing against those conditions – challenging.
Under the Gun
The hurricane has created enormous problems for the Gulf Coast’s
union workers. Waste Management Inc. – one of the largest waste
services companies in the United States – is one such example. The
company handled trash pick-ups for the city of New Orleans before
Katrina.
But after the storm, FEMA took over garbage collection for the city
and Waste Management secured several lucrative subcontracts for
debris removal. In the process, the company dumped its unionized
workers and replaced them with temps. Waste Management even set
up a camp just north of the Huey Long Bridge for its temp laborers.
Similar problems have emerged for bus drivers in New Orleans, where
service remains at less than 20 percent of what it was before the
hurricane and at least 500 employees are expected to be permanently
laid off.
“We’ve got so many issues down here,” remarked Mike Parker, a
13-year streetcar operator and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1560
member who has been driving a bus since he returned home. “Since
FEMA is paying the bill the company says we’re emergency workers.
We’ve got no seniority, and whenever it benefits them the company
says we have to follow their policy. But when it benefits the operators
against the company, then they say FEMA controls it and they hold
up their hands like they can’t do anything.”
Meanwhile shipyard workers in Avondale, Louisiana and Pascagoula,
Mississippi have been pressured by Northrop Grumman to re-open their
contracts, not due to expire until 2007.
Although the Pascagoula workers refused to reopen, Avondale workers
agreed, hoping to close the wage and benefit gaps that exist between
the two sites. Pascagoula shipyard workers currently earn more,
largely because Avondale was organized more recently, after a bitter
struggle with shipyard owners.
Avondale workers voted four to one February 7 against a proposal
that would have shifted health care costs to members, substituted
bonuses for increases in base pay, and extended the life of the
agreement by several years.
Migrant Workers Suffer
Conditions across the Gulf Coast have also prompted an unprecedented
influx of Latino workers into the region. This largely immigrant
workforce has frequently been shortchanged by the tangled web of
contracting and subcontracting that emerged in the cleanup effort.
“It’s
really survival of the fittest out there – the raging, unregulated
free market,” noted Bill Quigley, lawyer with the New Orleans-based
Loyola Law School Legal Clinic. “Since the hurricane we’ve really
seen a meltdown of wage and hour laws, OSHA laws, and practically
every other standard that exists for work in this country.”
Quigley’s colleague Luz Molina has been involved in several lawsuits
trying to reclaim unpaid wages and help workers injured on the job.
She agreed with Quigley’s assessment. “It’s a feeding frenzy. The
money is going to the big corporations and not to the workers. There
is no quality control and no oversight of who they are contracting
with.”
With more than 30,000 Latino workers flocking to the Gulf Coast
after the hurricane, tensions with local residents have been running
high.
“Certainly, people are upset because the money that is being spent
on housing out-of-state workers could be used for rebuilding housing
and housing local folks who want to return to the area and work,”
commented Stephen Bradberry, the head organizer for New Orleans
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
“But there is no side of this ‘blame game’ that benefits the local
worker being locked out of the job,” continued Bradberry, “or the
undocumented worker getting mistreated, all for the sake of these
contractors putting a few more dollars in their pocket.”
Disaster Profiteering
Indeed, employers on all sides of the rebuilding efforts are doing
all they can to line their pockets. Northrop Grumman’s demands for
concessions, for example, have nothing to do with offsetting the
cost of post-Katrina rebuilding. Although Grumman estimates damage
to its Gulf Coast facilities in excess of $1 billion, the company
stands to receive more than $2 billion of FEMA relief under President
Bush’s plan.
In October Bush asked Congress to redirect $17 billion in FEMA funds
to other federal agencies to assist in disaster recovery. With its
slice of that money, the Navy has already promised to increase the
payments on Grumman’s existing contracts to cover reconstruction
costs.
It is not surprising that Northrop Grumman is being tended to
so well, given the fact that the company and its executives contributed
more than a million dollars to Republican causes during the last
election. And the pattern of political payback stretches well beyond
the defense industry. The list of large contractors for hurricane
clean-up and temporary housing is a Who’s Who of politically connected
corporations.
“There is an outlandish amount of money coming into the region,”
noted Ishmael Muhammad, organizer with the People’s Hurricane Relief
Fund. “But the money is not getting to people who have really suffered.”
“I see it every day when I’m driving my bus,” Parker said. “When
I go by the casinos, they are breaking up perfectly good concrete
and paving to put down this fancy brick. Go down another mile and
it looks like the hurricane just hit yesterday.
“They find money to break good ground up and can’t find money to
get the power turned back on.”
Survivor’s Plan
But amidst the chaos and corporate giveaways, grassroots activists
continue to fight for a different vision of the Gulf Coast.
“They are really building a huge problem for themselves by not letting
people come home,” Muhammad said. “They aren’t funding a redevelopment
plan that includes poor folks or people of color.
“But the survivors are developing a plan, and their plan is focusing
on the communities that the city is saying don’t need to come back.”
Others are also working to prevent future rip-offs. “The immigrant
workers are doing the job,” said Frank Curiel, an organizer with
the Laborers. “The only way to protect them is to organize them.”
With six organizers on the ground and more on the way, the Laborers
are already responding to this opening. “We are positioning ourselves
for the future.” noted Darren Johnson, an international rep working
out of the New Orleans local. “We hope to turn the tide in the South.”
Mark Brenner is co-director of Labor Notes www.labornotes.org. |