Lambda Legal is the nation’s oldest and largest legal organization committed to achieving full civil rights for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgendered people, and people with HIV or AIDS. Founded in 1973 and headquartered in New York City, Lambda Legal has regional offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, and Dallas. Lambda Legal achieves its mission through litigation, education, and public policy work.
]]>New! Post-Katrina: Companies Are Responsible For Workers They Recruit To Perform Clean-Up And Rebuilding. States have an interest in ensuring that unscrupulous corporations that have received FEMA funding are not able to lure vulnerable workers from other states and then leave them without money or a place to live. Some contractors are not withholding taxes from workers’ pay, depriving the workers of benefits and the states of payroll tax revenues. Not only is this exploitation and abuse of the workers, it leaves the destination states and towns with the additional burden of assisting the workers who have no money and no home and dealing with local tensions that arise from their presence. This fact sheet identifies some strategies for holding companies responsible. (Oct. 2005)
The Washington Post
November 4, 2005
By Darryl Fears
Two months after the government began allotting billions of dollars for disaster relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, subcontractors in the Mississippi Gulf Coast say they are not being paid. As a result, they say, they cannot pay their workers, who are mostly immigrant laborers and who have painted homes, removed debris and completed other salvage chores.
Over the past two days, the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, or MIRA, has prepared complaints on behalf of more than 150 immigrant workers, both legal and illegal, and submitted them to the Labor Department. The complaints are asking the department to compel at least five subcontractors in Gulfport, Biloxi and other gulf areas to compensate the workers for as much as $100,000 in unpaid work.
The allegations came to light during a forum on Katrina-related immigrant abuse, held by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in Washington last week. Activists said immigrants were living in tents and crowding bus stations to leave the Gulf Coast because they had not been paid. Others are staying on, hoping that pay will come.
]]> "They're rebuilding the coast at the expense of immigrant labor, and everybody's washing their hands over who's responsible for the payment," said Victoria Cintra of MIRA. "The abuse that happens down here is atrocious, sickening. I'm not saying everybody's bad. I'm talking about ruthless contractors."The complaints prepared by MIRA named five subcontractors: Luna's Painting Service of Pharr, Tex.; Brothers Innovative Painting of Thomasville, Ga.; Wade Roofing and Construction of Mobile, Ala.; New Look of Pascagoula, Miss.; and KTC Services, a debris removal company based in Seven Springs, N.C.
Karen Tovar, owner of KTC Services, acknowledged that she could not pay about 80 workers she had employed, noting, "There's nothing I can do until I get paid."
Tovar said she is owed $130,000 for yard cleanup and debris removal by a company called United Disaster Relief, whose manager, Zachary Johnson, said he also has not been paid in two months. Johnson said he is a subcontractor of a company controlled by Halliburton Co., which was awarded a no-bid contract for disaster relief work by the Bush administration.
"It's very chaotic down here," Tovar said. "I've been in the business for 11 years, and I never had this happen before, and I hope I never have a situation like this again. I don't know what's going on with Halliburton."
Johnson said Tovar's payroll problems were self-made. He said disaster subcontractors often go unpaid by larger contractors for months. Johnson said he told Tovar when he hired her that she needed to have enough money to pay her workers even if she was not compensated.
"I'm over a million dollars in the hole," he said. "I expect that. I feel sorry for the guys that Karen has done this. She couldn't feed her men. I gave her $40,000 out of my pocket. I decided that I would not hire her again."
Rubin Morin, owner of Brothers Innovative Painting, said that he has not been paid by his prime contractor but that he has paid his workers. "That allegation is not true. I have canceled checks for the person that shows he has been paid in full," he said. He also disputed the number of workers who are part of the complaint against him, saying he does not recognize some of the names.
Another subcontractor -- Joe Luna of Luna's Painting Service -- did not return phone calls seeking a comment. Steve B. McQueen, owner of New Look said he had nothing to say. A fifth contractor named in the complaint, Wade Roofing and Construction, could not be reached.
Spokesmen for the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees about $50 billion in hurricane relief, said they were unaware that subcontractors and workers were not being paid. The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, which hired contractors for debris removal, did not respond to a request for a comment.
Tamara Faulkner, a spokeswoman for the inspector general's office at DHS, which is responsible for overseeing more than 100 disaster relief contracts, said the issue has not been mentioned in reports.
The complaints are the latest in a series of bad news for immigrants caught up in ruin wrought by Katrina. The Department of Homeland Security announced in September that illegal immigrants could be deported if they seek government aid. Later, the Bush administration announced that it was relaxing the rules requiring employers to confirm the legal status of their workers. As a result, activists say, companies could hire more undocumented workers. About the same time, President Bush suspended a law that requires employers who get federal contracts to pay workers the local prevailing wage.
Under pressure from civil rights groups, unions and members of Congress, Bush lifted the suspension recently. But two months had passed, Cintra said, and some subcontractors had already lured laborers to the Gulf Coast with promises that they would be housed, fed and paid at least $7 an hour. She said many employers did not deliver on that promise, forcing some workers to live in tents or go to American Red Cross shelters.
A spokeswoman for the Red Cross in south Mississippi, Mary Lee Conwell, confirmed Cintra's allegation. "They're getting promised the moon and stars by contractors . . . but their version of housing and feeding is to put them on a bus and drop them off at a Red Cross shelter."
Red Cross officials, struggling to provide housing to victims of the hurricane, provided housing for several days but eventually asked the workers to leave, Conwell said.
"I wish there was some way to pursue contractors who are taking advantage of the Red Cross and the workers, especially the non-English-speaking ones," Conwell said.
Elias Ascencio turned up his collar against the first blast of winter as he stood with other day laborers in the parking lot of The Home Depot in Passaic, hoping to get picked up for a job. The approaching cold had him considering a pitch he'd heard that morning: to head for the Gulf Coast.
"If the right opportunity comes up, I think I'll go," Ascencio, 35, who is Mexican born, said in Spanish. "To flee this cold, any offer will do."
In the months since Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the southern coast of Mississippi and Louisiana, immigrant laborers from North Jersey and across the United States have been heading to the South in droves, drawn by the promise of cleanup and reconstruction jobs.
It triggered an instant migration of workers to the region that some labor market experts predict could change the ethnic and cultural flavor of the Gulf Coast region.
Although the administration, under pressure from unions, reinstated Davis-Bacon last week, it does not retroactively apply to the thousands of contracts negotiated since the hurricane. As a result, the demand for temporary workers to do the high-risk, low-paying manual labor cleanup and reconstruction work continues unabated.
The call for workers has reached as far north as Passaic County, where, in recent weeks, local subcontractors and middlemen - hoping for a portion of the enormous federal and private cleanup and reconstruction contracts - are heading south with their own temporary work forces in tow.
The mostly small- to medium-sized nonunion outfits have been soliciting workers along the Dayton Avenue corridor in Passaic, according to several day laborers who congregate there on a regular basis.
They've been promising two- and three-week stints in Louisiana or Mississippi, transportation to the South, and wages averaging $10 an hour, including motel lodging and meals, the laborers said.
But workers who've signed on and headed south are finding very different conditions than what they were promised, according to those who've kept in touch with them in Passaic.
"Those who have gone so far have not come back yet, but I listened in on a phone conversation with them on speaker phone," said Jorge Zegarra, an immigrant from Peru, who solicits day jobs along Dayton Avenue in Passaic.
"They said that the conditions were bad, that they had promised them meals but were only giving them lunch, and that there was nowhere else to buy food or anything," he said.
Zegarra said groups of workers congregate around the contractors in the mornings as they make their pitches for the ride down south. When they get a group of 15 to 20 workers willing to go, they depart from Passaic in caravans. Zegarra said it was mostly younger, single men who'd taken up the offers - the group that immigration experts say always forms the first wave in the long-term transformation of an area.
Zegarra, 53, said that as an older worker supporting a family, he himself was hesitant to go for such small wages to do dangerous, physically demanding work in rough living conditions.
"One thinks to oneself: Where would I live if all the buildings down there are destroyed?" Zegarra said in Spanish. "Where would I shop, if the stores are all damaged and still closed, and the food that they give you there isn't enough to sustain you? Who wants to travel all the way to another place, just to be in an equally bad situation?"
But plenty are going, according to Bill Chandler, the president of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, a consortium of immigrant groups, unions, churches and community organizations headquartered in Jackson, Miss.
Chandler said Latino immigrant workers are pouring into the Gulf Coast from Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and even directly from Mexico.
"The problem is they've been recruited with false promises," Chandler said. He cited several instances in which workers who were promised motel rooms were living in tents. In one case, he'd found 30 workers living in three trailers who'd gone days without food or promised wages. Many were suffering the effects of exposure to molds and dangerous working conditions with no medical care or job site safeguards.
"There's no protection for these workers," Chandler said. "Most of these contracts were done under the Davis-Bacon suspension, and that's the foundation for exploitation of Latino workers down here."
Chandler's organization is working to help such workers, both those who were living in the area before Katrina hit and the waves of new immigrants heading into the region to work. But he said he was concerned about the lack of regulation of job health and safety. "I think it's going to continue to escalate," Chandler said of the exploitation of workers. "It's just like the Wild West here."
Workers heading to the region for temporary jobs may wind up staying long-term, eventually bringing their families to join them, and playing a central role in the revitalization of the local economy.
Although the 2000 Census estimated 40,000 Hispanics in Mississippi, those, like Chandler, who work with immigrant communities estimate the population to be closer to 100,000, including undocumented immigrants. Even at the higher estimates, Latinos still made up a minor percentage of the overall population of the state before Katrina - a balance that could rapidly change as more immigrants swarm to the region to find work.
"It's certainly going to change the stereotype of Mississippi," Chandler said. "It will change it to a majority 'people-of-color' state, and that will lead to significant political changes here."
Mahonrry Hidalgo, chairman of the New Jersey Latino Leadership Alliance Immigration Committee, said the same kind of labor-led transformation has happened all over the United States. "It's the rule of supply and demand, the law of economies everywhere," Hidalgo said in Spanish. "I think it will be a process of many years on the Gulf Coast, the immigrant community will have a huge impact."
Hidalgo said the shift of Latino labor to the Gulf Coast, could likewise affect the work force in states like New Jersey. "The anti-immigrant sentiments here, the absence of channels for getting driver's licenses in the state, and the high cost of living and lack of affordable housing, all these factors combined make it so people will seek out better places to live," he said.
Hidalgo said if the trend continues, many sectors in New Jersey, from agricultural businesses in the southern part of the state to construction, hospitality and elder care in the north could feel the loss. "When the work force goes elsewhere looking for jobs, the economy they sustain here will probably be affected," he said.
Workers like Elias Ascencio plan to be among that the first wave that may transform the Gulf Coast region.
Despite the ominous stories from friends who have already gone to the Gulf Coast - such as one who was promised $10 and hour and only $8 when he got there - Ascencio said he's had it with New Jersey winters and is determined to search for something better.
]]>Featuring keynote speaker Derrick Bell and many other outstanding voices.
The National Black Law Journal cordially invites you to our 35th Anniversary Symposium. The symposium will feature three panels that seek to interrogate the factors related to African American access to legal education, the impact of the institutional environment on student oucomes and progress in the profession. More broadly, the program will reflect upon where African Americans stand in legal education and in the field, particularly in light of the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and the ongoing debate regarding affirmative action. This is an opportunity to hear from leaders in the areas of social justice and Critical Race Theory as well as contribute to a progressive discourse with students and practitioners.
UCLA School of Law – Room 1357
November 18, 2005
8:30am-5:00pm
Confirmed Speakers Include:
Richard Brooks, Professor, Yale Law School
Devon Carbado, Professor, UCLA School of Law
Kimberlé Crenshaw, Professor, UCLA and Columbia Schools of Law
Michele Landis Dauber, Professor, Stanford Law School
Kimberly West-Faulcon, Professor, Loyola Law School
Christine Chambers Goodman, Professor, Pepperdine School of Law
Cheryl Harris, Professor, UCLA School of Law
Jerry Kang, Professor, UCLA School of Law
Angela Reddock, Attorney, The Reddock Law Group
Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, Professor of Psychology, Yale University
Erika Woods, Attorney, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
This event is free and open to the public
Parking Available at Lot 2 for $8
Sponsored by:
Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP, Shearman & Sterling LLP,
Foley & Lardner LLP, Arnold & Porter LLP, UCLA School of Law, UCLA Critical Race Studies Concentration,
UCLA Bunche Center for African American Studies and the Campus Programs Committee of Program Activities Board
UCLA School of Law is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider. The NBLJ Symposium qualifies for 4.5 hours of general MCLE credits.
]]>Its bittersweet being back in New Orleans. Although the architecture is the same, and its a relief to walk the streets and reunite with old friends, already this is a very different city from the one I love. Its a city where some areas are quickly rebuilding and other parts are being left far behind. A city where people who have lived here for generations are now unwelcome in a hundred different ways.
White New Orleans is steadily coming back, and Black New Orleans is moving out. A grassroots organizer with New Orleans Network tells me she has been speaking to people in every moving truck she sees. She reports that in every case, “they’re Black, they are renters, they’re moving out of New Orleans, and they say they would stay, if they had a choice.�
Inequality continues through the cleanup of New Orleans. Some areas have electricity, gas, and clean streets, and some areas are untouched. Medical volunteer Catherine Jones reports that driving the streets of New Orleans at night, “ I felt like I was in the middle of a checkerboard. The Quarter lit up like Disneyworld; poor black neighborhoods a few blocks over so dark I couldn't even see the street in front of me.�
While Lower Ninth Ward residents are still being kept from returning to their homes, “Lakeview, where 66 percent of children go to private school and 49 percent of residents have a college degree, was pumped dry within three weeks of the storm. Memphis Street (in Lakeview) smells now of bleach, which kills mold, and resounds to the thwack of crowbars and the whine of chain saws. Insurance adjusters have begun making rounds.�
A similar story is unfolding in South Florida, where the Miami Workers Center reports, “Close to 24 hours after Wilma struck, power returned to Miami's affluent and tourist districts such as South Beach, Downtown and the Brickell Financial District. In the past week, power has returned to most suburban communities. But power has been slowest returning to black, latino, and immigrant poor urban neighborhoods. Many of the 400,000 still in the dark have been told not to expect power until as late as November 22nd.�
Miami Workers center volunteer Terry Marshall reports, “this experience is showing...that it’s not a question of where the hurricane hits. It’s a question of where the resources are missed.�
New Orleans was, as more than one former resident has said, the African city in North America. It is a city steeped in a culture that is specifically African American - from Jazz to blues to bounce. It is the number one African American tourist destination in the US. The Bayou Classic and Essence Festival, two vital Black community events, bring tens of thousands of Black tourists to the city every year. Walking around town, its hard to imagine these tourists coming back to the new New Orleans - a city was once 70% Black and now feels unwelcome and hostile - or at least uncaring - to its own past.
Last Wednesday alone, 335 evictions were filed in New Orleans courts - the amount normally filed in a month. There have been countless reports of landlords throwing tenant’s property out on the street without any notice. New Orleans human rights lawyer Bill Quigley reports that “Fully armed National Guard troops refuse to allow over ten thousand people to even physically visit their property in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood. Despite the fact that people cannot come back, tens of thousands of people face eviction from their homes. A local judge told me that their court expects to process a thousand evictions a day for weeks. Renters still in shelters or temporary homes across the country will never see the court notice taped to the door of their home. Because they will not show up for the eviction hearing that they do not know about, their possessions will be tossed out in the street. In the street their possessions will sit alongside an estimated 3 million truck loads of downed trees, piles of mud, fiberglass insulation, crushed sheetrock, abandoned cars, spoiled mattresses, wet rugs, and horrifyingly smelly refrigerators full of food from August.�
A recent poll from Gallup reports that, even adjusting for differences in income, White and Black New Orleanians have had deeply different experiences of this disaster. Blacks were more likely to fear for their lives (63% vs. 39%), to have been separated from family members for at least a day (55% vs. 45%), gone without food for at least a day (53% vs. 24%) and spent at least one night in an emergency shelter (34% vs. 13%).
The New York Times and other papers have reprinted former FEMA director Michael Brown’s emails from the time when our city was being flooded - stunning evidence of how little the agency cared about what was happening in New Orleans. “If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god,� reads a typical email from the day after the hurricane hit. Other emails showed Brown and his staffers to be more concerned with his dinner reservations in Baton Rouge and a dog sitter for his house than with anything happening in New Orleans.
The demographics of New Orleans have changed in gender as well as race. The thousands of contractors and laborers that have arrived from across the country - in addition to National Guard, police agencies, security guards, and other workers - are overwhelmingly male. Because most schools are closed, there are few kids below 17 or their families. Women I know who have returned report feeling uncomfortable and unsafe.
A large Latino immigrant population has come to work in the city’s reconstruction. These workers have been demonized by everyone from Mayor Nagin to local talk radio. Grassroots medical volunteers report that some of the workers are forbidden by their employers from talking to anyone or even leaving their rooms at night. They are working in hazardous conditions, for low pay and little safety protection - already many have become ill, and they have no access to medical care, and face a hostile city.
There are still thousands of New Orleans residents who have not been convicted of any crime trapped in maximum security prisons and “no one in a position of power finds this pressing,� says Ursula Price, a staff researcher with A Fighting Chance, an indigent defense group. She estimates at least 2000 prisoners from Orleans Parish Prison remain in Angola, the notorious former slave plantation in rural Louisiana. These are people who were picked up for “misdemeanor offenses such as public drunkenness, traffic violations, soliciting a prostitute,� Price says. If convicted, at most they would have served less time than they have been in for. But, in Orleans Parish and Jefferson Parish, courts have been closed for most of this time, and public defenders have been laid off. “The system is not working with us,� Price tells me. “I don't understand why prosecutors are in there arguing against release of someone on a misdemeanor charge. We have women who have had miscarriages, mental heath problems, physical health problems, and no one in power seems to care.� The total population of Orleans Parish Prison at the time of hurricane Katrina was at least 7,000 people. In a city of just 500,000, that's a significant population.
The people of New Orleans are not just physically displaced, but also disenfranchised from their city in other ways. According to the Wall Street Journal, when FEMA officials were asked by Louisiana state officials for access to the FEMA database so that they could inform New Orleans evacuees about their right to vote in upcoming municipal elections, the response was a terse email - “(FEMA) will not let you have a copy of the FEMA applicant list. Sorry!!!� What better way to let people know that the city is not theirs than to have an election to which they are not invited?
Many in New Orleans are struggling with an even more basic and vital concern - the recovery of their loved ones. Less than a quarter of the bodies so far reported discovered in New Orleans have been turned over to families. The rest are at the New Orleans coroners, currently relocated to St. Gabriel’s Parish. “Officials in coroner's offices in several parishes reported that they sought to keep their victims from going to St. Gabriel,� reports today's Times-Picayune, which describes one families long ordeal in recovering their mother’s body. Just one more area where people of New Orleans are left behind.
While this tragedy multiplies, while evictions mount and exploitation increases, the former residents of New Orleans have their choice of a dizzying array of forums, hearings, panels, tribunals, town halls, committees, subcommittees, commissions, meetings, marches and demonstrations, most of which are seeking the input of the people of new orleans.
In the space of two days last week, I went to a public meeting with a representative from the UN High Commission on extreme poverty. I went to a meeting of the housing subcommittee of the urban planning committee of the mayors blue ribbon commission on rebuilding New Orleans. I joined a rally at the State Capitol featuring Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton, and various Government officials. At each event I saw hundreds of poor folks from New Orleans. I also met representatives of a community group for East New Orleans residents displaced to Baton Rouge - they report that 500 people come to their weekly meetings.
This Monday, I will march across the bridge from New Orleans to Gretna, to join in protests called by a wide array of national organizations against a crime Cynthia McKinney has said "might become the worst American civil rights episode of the 21st Century," the blockade by Gretna police of the only exit out of New Orleans for thousands of evacuees. I also plan to join the People's Assembly initiated by the People's Hurricane Fund on December 8-10.
There are many outlets for action, as well as plenty of anger and energy, but also a deep skepticism. The people of New Orleans have a justified distrust of the people and institutions who have arrived with promises and resources. Hundreds of well-meaning volunteers have come in to town, and many have done vital work, but in some cases this has increased tensions. “Some people have come here with this attitude, ‘we’re bringing organizing to New Orleans.’ They don’t seem interested in what was here before,� reports one community organizer.
These divisions are not only concentrated on the grassroots - disagreements within the mayor’s commission on rebuilding New Orleans have become increasingly public, with some representatives complaining to the New York Times of not being invited to private breakfasts between the mayor and other commission members.
"The truth is," said one longtime activist, "people have a lot of anger and grief, and they don't where to direct it." We are all tired, frustrated and sad, but the struggle for justice continues.
]]>Wednesday, November 16, 2005
12:00 PM
Law Room 1314
To learn more about Prof. Kang's work in this area, please see:
Audio link to interview Prof. Jerry Kang
Transcript link of interview with Prof. Jerry Kang
UCLA School of Law's Critical Race Studies Program
presents
Hurricane Katrina: Bringing the People and the Issues Home
A Public Educational Forum on Natural Disaster,
Social Justice, and the Law
Panelists
Martha Kegel, Unity for the Homeless
Patty Ferguson, Pointe-au-Chien Indian Nation
Wendy Brown Scott, Tulane Law School/From the Lake to the River Coalition
Barbara Lacen-Keller, Central City Partnership
Dr. Beverly Wright, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
Melissa Burch, Physicians for Social Responsibility
Moderator: Sean Hecht, Executive Director, UCLA Environmental Law Center
Jaribu Hill, Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights
Curtis Muhammad, People's Hurricane Relief Fund/Community Labor United
Bill Quigley, Clinical Director, Loyola Law School (New Orleans)
Tracie Washington, Civil Rights Lawyer
Katherine Mattes, Tulane Clinical Law Faculty
Maria Hincapié, National Immigration Law Center
Moderator: Gary Blasi, Professor UCLA School of Law
Monday, Nov 14, 2005 Law 1357 |
Co-sponsored by: Native Nations Law and Policy Center, Program in Public Interest Law and Policy, Evan Frankel Environmental Law & Policy Program, UCLA Center for Research, Education, Training, and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities, UCLA Center for Community Partnershipsand UCLA Women's Studies Program
Wednesday, November 9, 2005
12:00 PM
Law Room 1314
To access Prof. Kang's archived presentation on exam writing, please see:
http://www.law.ucla.edu/kang/Talks/talks.html
To access Prof. Kang's web page, please see:
http://jerrykang.net
Noon
Room 1314.
Please RSVP Robin Lee at leer@law.ucla.edu
]]>
GOOD HOPE, La. - Near this speck on the map southwest of New Orleans, where an oil refinery spouts flames into the sky and alligators are said to lurk in the green canals, sits something that is causing consternation across Louisiana: a camp for out-of-state workers cleaning up after the flood.
The camp, operated by a New York company called LVI Services, is not much to look at: a row of tractor-trailers crammed with bunks, a long line of portable toilets, a couple of R.V.'s and three tents with striped roofs. Gun-packing guards wear black T-shirts reading, "Police."
It is a temporary home for hundreds of LVI's workers, some of whom said they were in the United States illegally. They are commuting into New Orleans, swabbing the mold off walls, ripping the guts out of buildings, removing mountains of soggy debris.
]]> And they are stirring up resentment. Louisianians, from high-level public officials to low-wage workers, have begun to complain about the influx of outsiders they perceive as having come to profit off their pain."People from other states, we appreciate their help," said Aubrey D. Cheatham, a union electrician from New Orleans who believes he lost a job to lower-paid workers from outside Louisiana. "But everybody else is getting work, not us."
Workers from all over have been pouring into Louisiana, some bused in by contracting companies, others simply turning up on their own in search of jobs. While nobody seems to know how many are here, there is plenty of work; the federal government estimates it will spend more than $450 million just to clean up hurricane debris.
And as that work continues, Louisianians are casting unhappy eyes on everyone from the giant construction companies that won federal contracts to the small-town builders driving big pickup trucks with out-of-state license plates.
Much of the overt hostility is focused on the army of Latino workers who appear to be doing much of the dirtiest cleanup work, often in the employ of those big companies, and often for less money that local workers might insist on.
State officials have expressed concerns, with Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, calling on Oct. 24 for an investigation of federal contractors, whom she said were hiring "low-wage undocumented workers." And in Kenner, just west of New Orleans, the City Council has passed an emergency ordinance to try to regulate workers' trailers and tents that have mushroomed all over the city.
"We're trying to be as considerate and compassionate as we can be to our out-of-town guests, but we need to preserve the quality of life for our residents as well," said Philip J. Ramon, chief of staff for Kenner's mayor.
Employers point out that they are not required to investigate the authenticity of employees' documents. And as for bringing in workers, some say they have no choice.
"People in the area of impact are disjointed, disoriented," said Burton T. Fried, president of LVI Services.
But in places where LVI will be working for a while, it tries to make a transition to local workers, Mr. Fried said. "The purpose is, forgetting morality, that we don't have to pay per diems, food service, transportation," he said.
The focus on Hispanic immigrants worries people like Representative Nydia M. Velázquez of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Small Business Committee.
"I am afraid the anger and frustration of hurricane victims is going to be turned against undocumented workers, who are being taken advantage of," Ms. Velázquez said.
Louisiana has only a small Spanish-speaking population, which is concentrated in and around Kenner. New Orleans itself is 3.1 percent Hispanic, according to the latest census, and the state as a whole is just 2.4 percent, far less than the national average of 12.5 percent. Therefore many of the newcomers stand out.
The worker encampments are also not hard to spot: next to a cemetery on Airline Highway in Metairie, around the side of a Winn-Dixie supermarket on Williams Boulevard in Kenner, on the campus of Delgado Community College in New Orleans.
There are less formal living arrangements, too. On the west side of City Park, in the north part of New Orleans, campers are parked next to forklifts, tents have sprouted next to dump trucks and hammocks are slung next to front-end loaders. Judging by the license plates on the trucks, many of the inhabitants appear to be from nearby states.
But not all, at least not originally. José L. Garcia and five of his friends were camping recently under a live oak tree, sharing three tents, eating food from a church kitchen and bathing in a plastic garbage can. The men live in Charlotte, N.C., but said most of them knew one other from the Mexican state of Michoacán.
Behind their pickup trucks were two large trailers, which the men use to transport debris to a dump. They get $10 for every reeking refrigerator they throw out, Mr. Garcia said, but they do not want to do that work anymore - it makes them smell too bad.
Hard and unpleasant as cleanup work is, there are Louisianians willing to do it, said Barry Kaufman, the business manager of Construction and General Laborers' Local 689 in New Orleans. Mr. Kaufman has said he has at least 2,000 people willing to take cleanup jobs, although many of them - and the local's hiring hall - are now displaced in Baton Rouge, more than an hour's drive from New Orleans.
"The local guys are trying, but there's nowhere for them to stay," Mr. Kaufman said, adding that one of the camps "looks like Little Mexico."
The situation is new to Louisiana, which has little tradition of attracting large numbers of transient workers, unlike Florida and other booming areas, said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Economy.com. The stagnant economy here has not provided many job opportunities since 2001.
The complaints also reflect the widespread frustration over the continuing lack of housing in the area. Tens of thousands of houses were destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, leaving their former residents adrift. Businesses of all sorts are frantically advertising for workers, even as the jobless rate for Louisianians jumped to 11.5 percent in September, from 5.8 percent in August.
It was the promise of housing, as much as anything, that prompted Mr. Cheatham, the union electrician, to take a job wiring a tent city for a subcontractor at the Naval Air Station at Belle Chasse, south of New Orleans, he said. He had lost his house near Lake Pontchartrain to flooding, along with his car; his family was scattered.
Life on the base was tough, he said, but he was particularly troubled by the presence of a large number of people he believed to be illegal immigrants, some of whom were working at the base, others of whom arrived each night on buses for meals. (The Navy said it allowed its contractors to house workers on the base.) "I called immigration several times to complain," Mr. Cheatham said.
Then, abruptly in their view, the subcontractor, BE&K, fired Mr. Cheatham and his fellow union electricians. The electricians, who make about $22 an hour plus benefits, said they believed that their jobs were taken by lower-paid, illegal workers.
Their boss, Albert Knight of Knight Enterprises in Lacombe, La., complained to Senate Democrats, who demanded an investigation. And, in fact, federal officials have since found more than two dozen illegal workers at the base, although only two worked for BE&K, which says it did not replace the electricians with lower-paid workers.
According to an August report by the Government Accountability Office, enforcement of workplace laws has become a low priority for federal immigration authorities, which fined only three companies for improper hiring in the 2004 fiscal year, down from 417 in the 1999 fiscal year. Arrests have also plummeted.
For workers, company-provided housing can be as much a curse as a blessing, said Frank J. Curiel, an organizer for the Laborers International Union. Some workers have been cast into the street with nowhere to go, he said, while others cannot quit their jobs because they would become homeless.
It is not hard to find such people, as Mr. Curiel demonstrated by striking up a conversation with three men outside an LVI building down the road from the housing camp. The men said they were making $10 an hour cleaning up debris and were bunking at the camp, which they said had an atmosphere like a jail.
One man, a Honduran who said he was afraid to give his real name, said he wanted nothing more than to return to Houston, where he had lived for six months. But he did not have enough money after sending most of his last paycheck back to his family.
The man said he did not like working with strong chemicals and had been having health problems. When he did not want to work one day, he said, his supervisor told him that he was fired and that he had to leave the camp. He was not sure what he would do next.
One of his friends, a teenager who gave his name as Valentine Morales (which was not the name on the plastic ID tag he was wearing), said he was from the Mexican state of Chiapas and had been living in Springfield, Mass. He had heard there was a lot of work after the hurricane, he said, so he took a bus to Mississippi and made his way to Louisiana.
Soon, he will move on to Florida, the young man said. "I used to be a farm worker," he explained, "but now I do cleanup work."
]]>Like many in New Orleans, NO/AIDS Task Force, one of the oldest and largest
AIDS service organizations in the Gulf South, was greatly affected by
Hurricane Katrina. Some of our facilities were badly damaged, our staff,
clients and volunteers were displaced all around the country and our largest
yearly fundraiser, our annual NO/AIDS Walk was cancelled. The cancellation
of the 16th annual NO/AIDS Walk means a loss of hundreds of thousands of
dollars at a time when the agency needs it the most.
NO/AIDS needs your help more than ever. The Task Force is asking for help in
replacing their lost Walk with a Virtual Walk, which runs from Oct 12 to Dec
16. Instead of walking with your feet, you're asked to walk with your
keyboard. It's easy for you - and vital for NO/AIDS! The Task Force is
asking anyone concerned about the fight against AIDS, to join them by
registering at www.noaidstaskforce.org as an individual, starting a team or
joining a team. Once you're registered, you will be able to turn your email
into a powerful fundraising tool. NO/AIDS is also accepting general
donations through the virtual walk site.
NO/AIDS Task Force is struggling to get its doors open to services for their
clients and anyone infected or affected by HIV/AIDS as they return to the
New Orleans area. They have already reopened their medication disbursement
program and are also offering client services, food distribution and mental
health services on a limited basis, and intend to continue adding services
in the coming weeks. These efforts depend greatly on the success of the
Virtual Walk. Please join in the efforts to help NO/AIDS and the clients
they serve by registering at www.noaidstaskforce.org. Please help us spread
the word, by passing this email along to anyone who may be interested.
More information and registration at http://www.noaidstaskforce.org
]]>
We recently spent a week in New Orleans and southern Louisiana interviewing relief workers, community activists, urban planners, artists and neighborhood folks. Even as the latest flood waters from Hurricane Rita recede, the city remains submerged in anger and frustration.
Indeed, the most toxic debris in New Orleans isn't the sinister gray sludge that coats the streets of the historic Creole neighborhood of Treme or the Lower Ninth Ward but all the unanswered questions that have accumulated in the wake of so much official betrayal and hypocrisy. Where outsiders see simple "incompetence" or "failure of leadership," locals are more inclined to discern deliberate design and planned neglect--the murder, not the accidental death, of a great city.
In almost random order, here are twenty-five of the urgent questions that deeply trouble the local people we spoke with. Until a grand jury or Congressional committee begins to uncover the answers, the moral (as opposed to simply physical) reconstruction of the New Orleans region will remain impossible.
]]> 1. Why did the floodwalls along the 17th Street Canal only break on the New Orleans side and not on the Metairie side? Was this the result of neglect and poor maintenance by New Orleans authorities?2. Who owned the huge barge that was catapulted through the wall of the Industrial Canal, killing hundreds in the Lower Ninth Ward--the most deadly hit-and-run accident in US history?
3. All of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish east of the Industrial Canal were drowned, except for the Almonaster-Michoud Industrial District along Chef Menteur Highway. Why was industrial land apparently protected by stronger levees than nearby residential neighborhoods?
4. Why did Mayor Ray Nagin, in defiance of his own official disaster plan, delay twelve to twenty-four hours in ordering a mandatory evacuation of the city?
5. Why did Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff not declare Katrina an "Incident of National Significance" until August 31--thus preventing the full deployment of urgently needed federal resources?
6. Why wasn't the nearby USS Bataan immediately sent to the aid of New Orleans? The huge amphibious-landing ship had a state-of-the-art, 600-bed hospital, water and power plants, helicopters, food supplies and 1,200 sailors eager to join the rescue effort.
7. Similarly, why wasn't the Baltimore-based hospital ship USS Comfort ordered to sea until August 31, or the 82nd Airborne Division deployed in New Orleans until September 5?
8. Why does Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld balk at making public his "severe weather execution order" that established the ground rules for the military response to Katrina? Did the Pentagon, as a recent report by the Congressional Research Service suggests, fail to take initiatives within already authorized powers, then attempt to transfer the blame to state and local governments?
9. Why were the more than 350 buses of the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority--eventually flooded where they were parked--not mobilized to evacuate infirm, poor and car-less residents?
10. What significance attaches to the fact that the chair of the Transportation Authority, appointed by Mayor Nagin, is Jimmy Reiss, the wealthy leader of the New Orleans Business Council, which has long advocated a thorough redevelopment of (and cleanup of crime in) the city?
11. Under what authority did Mayor Nagin meet confidentially in Dallas with the "forty thieves"--white business leaders led by Reiss--reportedly to discuss the triaging of poorer black areas and a corporate-led master plan for rebuilding the city?
12. Everyone knows about a famous train called "the City of New Orleans." Why was there no evacuation by rail? Was Amtrak part of the disaster planning? If not, why not?
13. Why were patients at private hospitals like Tulane evacuated by helicopter while their counterparts at the Charity Hospital were left to suffer and die?
14. Was the failure to adequately stock food, water, portable toilets, cots and medicine at the Louisiana Superdome a deliberate decision--as many believe--to force poorer residents to leave the city?
15. The French Quarter has one of the highest densities of restaurants in the nation. Once the acute shortages of food and water at the Superdome and the Convention Center were known, why didn't officials requisition supplies from hotels and restaurants located just a few blocks away? (As it happened, vast quantities of food were simply left to spoil.)
16. City Hall's emergency command center had to be abandoned early in the crisis because its generator supposedly ran out of diesel fuel. Likewise, many critical-care patients died from heat or equipment failure after hospital backup generators failed. Why were supplies of diesel fuel so inadequate? Why were so many hospital generators located in basements that would obviously flood?
17. Why didn't the Navy or Coast Guard immediately airdrop life preservers and rubber rafts in flooded districts? Why wasn't such life-saving equipment stocked in schools and hospitals?
18. Why weren't evacuee centers established in Audubon Park and other unflooded parts of Uptown, where locals could be employed as cleanup crews?
19. Is the Justice Department investigating the Jim Crow-like response of the suburban Gretna police, who turned back hundreds of desperate New Orleans citizens trying to walk across the Mississippi River Bridge--an image reminiscent of Selma in 1965? New Orleans, meanwhile, abounds in eyewitness accounts of police looting and illegal shootings: Will any of this ever be investigated?
20. Who is responsible for the suspicious fires that have swept the city? Why have so many fires occurred in blue-collar areas that have long been targets of proposed gentrification, such as the Section 8 homes on Constance Street in the Lower Garden District or the wharfs along the river in Bywater?
21. Where were FEMA's several dozen vaunted urban search-and-rescue teams? Aside from some courageous work by Coast Guard helicopter crews, the early rescue effort was largely mounted by volunteers who towed their own boats into the city after hearing an appeal on television.
22. We found a massive Red Cross presence in Baton Rouge but none in some of the smaller Louisiana towns that have mounted the most impressive relief efforts. The poor Cajun community of Ville Platte, for instance, has at one time or another fed and housed more than 5,000 evacuees; but the Red Cross, along with FEMA, has refused almost daily appeals by local volunteers to send professional personnel and aid. Why then give money to the Red Cross?
23. Why isn't FEMA scrambling to create a central registry of everyone evacuated from the greater New Orleans region? Will evacuees receive absentee ballots and be allowed to vote in the crucial February municipal elections that will partly decide the fate of the city?
24. As politicians talk about "disaster czars" and elite-appointed reconstruction commissions, and as architects and developers advance utopian designs for an ethnically cleansed "new urbanism" in New Orleans, where is any plan for the substantive participation of the city's ordinary citizens in their own future?
25. Indeed, on the fortieth anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, what has happened to democracy?
]]>Shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the surrounding areas, critics charged that a lack of concern for poor and black people who lived in the devastated areas was behind the slow response to the disaster, the assumption being that low-income people and black people were disproportionately likely to be victims. Even among victims, blacks and poor people were seen as more likely to suffer hardships than whites and high-income people.
Results from a CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey* allow a comparison of racial and income effects among actual hurricane victims. The poll was conducted six weeks after the storm hit the Gulf Coast. Interviews were conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 9 among people who had applied for Red Cross assistance because of damage they had suffered from Katrina. The Red Cross database included more than 463,000 names, and the poll interviewed a random sample of 1,510 by telephone, some by landline and others by cell phone.
A comparison of the experiences reported by these people shows that blacks and poor people were indeed more likely than whites and high-income people, respectively, to suffer from the hurricane. It also shows that there were larger racial differences than income differences.
]]> On 7 of the 10 hurricane-related hardships asked about in the poll, black victims were significantly more likely than white victims to say they experienced them. Blacks were significantly more likely than whites to have:Download file ]]>