Big Easy Leaders Upset Over Cleanup Jobs

[Judi Lynn]

Published Friday, October 7, 2005

Big Easy Leaders Upset Over Cleanup Jobs

By ADAM NOSSITER
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS
They clear rotten seafood from stinking restaurant freezers, wash excrement from the floors of the Superdome, rip out wads of soaked insulation. The work is hot, nasty and critical to the recovery of New Orleans. And yet, many of the workers are not actually from New Orleans.

Many of those engaged in the huge cleanup and reconstruction effort here - nobody has an exact count - are immigrants, both legal and illegal, from Mexico and Central America. Meanwhile, as many as 80,000 New Orleanians sit idle in shelters around the country.

They are out of work, homeless and destitute. That irks some civic and union leaders.

"I've got nothing against our Hispanic brothers, but we have a whole lot of skilled laborers in shelters that could be doing this work," said Oliver Thomas, president of the City Council. "We could put a whole lot of money in the pockets of New Orleanians by doing this reconstruction work."
(snip/...)

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051007/APA/510070892

[alarimer]

1. This pisses me off too

more cheap labor conservatives in action.

[robcon]

2. Shocking!

You mean the politicians of New Orleans look at a cleanup effort as a way to get patronage jobs for their favored constituents?

I'm shocked and surprised.

[ender]

4. you're blaming the locals?

what the fuck.

this area of the country needs a hige infusion of keynesian economics, in a big way, and you're blaming the locall for demanding it?

[seriousstan]

3. But I thought illegals only took jobs we Americans wouldn't do.

[Nordmadr]

5. They only get jobs Americans won't do for $1.87 an hour.

So in other words, if they can do the job, and do it cheaper than what Americans will work for...the job is theirs.

Olaf

[seriousstan]

6. So explain these high paying jobs being taken by illegals.

[finecraft]

7. One word explanation - Halliburton

There was a rumor a few weeks ago down here about this. Supposedly Halliburton has hired Mexicans and Central Americans to provide the labor for the no-bid clean up contract they received (Word on the street is that they are paying $600.00 a month cash). I heard that Immigration did a raid on a red cross shelter in Gonzales and at least half of the people they identified as being undocumented there were working for Halliburton doing clean up work. Halliburton hired Indonesians to do the clean up and reconstruction work in Iraq because it was cheaper than hiring Iraqi citizens to do the work.....look how successfully that worked out! I guess they are just following their one-size fits all, profit-making business plan. :sarcasm: Bastards.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

23. Doesn't surprise me

BTW. I called Mr. 'pede into the office to view your sig pic. Purrfect !

[Nordmadr]

8. Perhaps I wasn't clear.

the most recent news I recall hearing was that jobs were being offered in the sub $2/hr range for the clean up/reconstruction work. (I forget the actual dollar salary but it was high single dollar an hour pay). This after the President of this fine nation decided it was just fine and dandy to bypass minimum wage laws there for the time being. This effectively further lines the pockets of contractors who will save boat loads of money in labor costs. Now since there are very few Americans that can support themselves in this consumer driven economy on $2/an hour jobs, it leaves the immigrants, most of whom are likely illegal, to do the work, and make no mistake, this is good pay for most of these folks.

Now call me crazy, but it seems if you hire locals to do the work, at some level of respectable pay, then you will go alot further in rebuilding the community, and not just the infrastructure.

Srop the world please, I'd like to get off now. This ride is making me nauseous.

Olaf

[seriousstan]

9. Show me a link for the 2/hr claim. I have a hard time believing it.

Also, minimum wage was not waived. The requirement for prevailing wage was waived. That is a major difference.

[Nordmadr]

10. Of course now I can not find where I read that, still looking. N/T

[Nordmadr]

11. Ok, since I can't locate my source I respectfully withdraw my wage

claim for Katrina workers, though I know I saw it, I thought on Raw Story. It talked about the workers being unable to turn down the jobs because of the GOOD pay. Like I said however, even internet searching can not back up my claim so I guess I am SOL.

olaf

[seriousstan]

12. It happens to me all the time.

Please don't take the question as questioning your truthfulness. I am just really nosy when it come to facts I may later use. Thanks.

[Maddy McCall]

15. Use my facts. I know four or five guys who are getting these contracts.

I've heard them discuss how it works--first-hand.

One of them tried to hire my brother, who's disabled, for $20/day under the table. My brother told him to get fucked.

[Maddy McCall]

14. It's true. I know from personal experience what's going on down here.

Read my post below. It's the gospel truth.

[Maddy McCall]

13. He's right.

Here's what's happening here. I don't have a link, but I know how the contracts are working here.

Joe The Rich Guy gets a FEMA contract to clean up debris from a town for $15/ton.

Since Joe doesn't have heavy equipment, he hires Tom, who has a bulldozer, backhoe, and crane, to do the work for $9/ton.

Since Tom can't make much money at $9/ton, he brings in immigrant labor, which he can pay under the table a couple dollars an hour to do the work.

Joe The Rich Guy profits, and neither his labor nor his equipment were used--he's out nothing, and he's going to clear a couple hundred thousand. Tom makes a slim profit--it's his equipment and fuel being used. The poor immigrants don't profit. They sell their labor for a tenth of what it's worth.

And that's how contracts down here in Katrinaland are being made.

[dmr]

18. Not only do the immigrants not profit, but they're exposed to health risks

because they are not properly trained, nor do they have the protective equiptmemt/tools in which to do the job safely.

Too bad the feds don't hold Joe the Rich Guy contractor accountable.

[Miss Chybil]

17. Gulf Coast citizens should have these jobs, period.

Their homes, their towns, their jobs, their lives depend on it. And they should be paid the PREVAILING wage. This disaster profiteering is making me sick.

[ninkasi]

22. I agree 100%, Miss Chybil

This is an outrage, that the people already victimized by the storm, FEMA's screw-up, and an indifferent President, are now being victimized again by living all over the country in shelters, and penniless.

This is why Bush is such a dismal failure...he uses the government as his private piggy bank, giving money hand over fist to his cronies, and then expects us to pay the bills. Haven't the victims of Katrina suffered enough already?

[NorthernSpy]

16. for heaven's sake! hire the people of New Orleans to rebuild their city!

And apply the same principle to all the Gulf Coast communities.

The survivors need control over -- and equity in -- their future. Participating in the rebuilding can provide those things. The ancestors of the hurricane survivors built these communities of the Gulf, and their descendants should have the chance to rebuild their homes and lives.

FDR would have known what to do in this situation. Among the displaced, there are many willing hands. What is needed is organization.

[saddemocrat]

19. don't flame me, but...

my brother is a TX native who has gone down to NO to help out. (Of course, FEMA had him there living in a tent unpaid for 3 weeks before figuring out where to put him and now he's living in a tent in front of a wal-mart with other fema workers..but I digress). They brought several NO natives with them to come to work as a part of the crew. These individuals ALL ended up being asked to leave.

The reason? He said that they just didn't care...They only wanted to sit and smoke (all 6 of them) and refused to do any of the labor. My brother was infuriated because he and his friends paid for these people's food/gas etc...and shared tents with them for 3 weeks in the spirit of helping their fellow man.

The clean-up/roofing job pays $350-$500/DAY depending on how much they get done! It was a great opportunity for them to really earn some money. The 6 men all ended up going back to Houston to not work for their money.

My brother was furious.

[NorthernSpy]

20. Oh, yeah. Sure. I'll bet that's just what happened, "Sad Democrat"...

:eyes:

"Flame" you? Do you really think you're worth the trouble?

Me, I'm filing this one with that supposed "first person account" from the friend of someone's brother that claimed that nobody at the evacuee shelter would accept the $20/hr oil company jobs that he was trying to fill.

In fact, there have been a slew of these little items of agitprop. Funny how consistently they turn out to be fabrications...

[bettyellen]

24. yeah, and i'm so sorry about your helicopter being shot down....

[NorthernSpy]

21. Rev. Jesse Jackson is actually DOING something about this!

From the article:

On Friday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson decried the lack of local labor taking part in the cleanup and said his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition planned to bus 600 residents from shelters around the country back to New Orleans to be matched with jobs and housing.

The caravan is to depart Monday from Chicago and travel to shelters in St. Louis, Memphis, Jackson, Miss., and Mobile, Ala. It should arrive in New Orleans on Tuesday. Jackson said residents will be housed in hotels and trailers and on military bases and would get help obtaining construction and service jobs.

Yes! This is a good idea. This effort helps to provide the organization that has been lacking. Thank God there are people who don't want to see the displaced shut out of their own future, and who are willing to DO something about it.


Of course, we can expect to see these workers collectively slandered, no matter what they do. I suspect that they could rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem overnight with their bare hands, and they would still get slandered as lazy, ungrateful incompetents.

Plainly, the survivors have some enemies. The same people who spread that false "I tried to help ungrateful evacuees" chain email will not be convinced to stop defaming the people they hate. But that is no reason not to have many efforts like this one. We will carry on in spite of that sort of thing!


:thumbsup:

[salin]

25. Is anyone surprised? Give $$ to crony contractors

who then hire the cheapest labor possible - the point isn't about rebuilding NO - it is about further feathering their nests. Greed is God to the GOP.

[mopinko]

26. just like iraq

same shit we are doing in iraq. probably with the same results. turmoil, hopelessness. how long before there are ied's blowing people up here?