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   From: oO@oO.com   
      
   Workers in New Orleans Denied Pay, Proper Housing and Threatened with   
   Deportation   
      
      
   In the clean-up efforts following the devastation of hurricane Katrina in   
   New Orleans, many undocumented workers and homeless people were recruited to   
   the area to work under large companies contracted by the federal government.   
   We speak with Newsday reporter Tina Susman, who has investigated the case of   
   a group of homeless men, and Bill Chandler, about subcontractors and   
   workers' complaints. [includes rush transcript]   
      
   In the weeks after Hurricane Katrina whipped the Gulf Coast region,   
   companies like Halliburton, Kellogg Brown & Root - a Halliburton   
   subsidiary - and EEC Operating Services were given huge contracts by the   
   federal government to clean up hurricane debris and start rebuilding the   
   area. Undocumented immigrants and other economically marginalized people   
   were lured to the region by promises of work and good pay. But it turns out   
   that many of those workers have never been paid and have little recourse in   
   collecting their promised checks. Some undocumented workers were even   
   threatened with deportation when they demanded their pay.   
   An article on Salon.com stated that the problem is "a shadowy labyrinth of   
   contractors, subcontractors and job brokers, overseen by no single agency,   
   that have created a no man's land where nobody seems to be accountable for   
   the hiring-and abuse of these workers."   
      
      
     a.. Tina Susman, a reporter for Newsday. She followed the case of a group   
   of homeless men from Atlanta who went to New Orleans to work and never got   
   paid.   
     b.. Bill Chandler, president of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance.   
   Their group has filed complaints against five subcontractors in the Gulfport   
   region on behalf of workers who weren't paid for the cleanup that they did.   
   RUSH TRANSCRIPT   
   AMY GOODMAN: We're joined now in our studio by Tina Susman, reporter for   
   Newsday. She's followed the case of a group of homeless men from Atlanta,   
   who went to New Orleans to work and never got paid. We're also joined on the   
   phone by Bill Chandler, President of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights   
   Alliance. Their group has filed complaints against five sub-contractors in   
   the Gulfport region on behalf of workers who weren't paid for the cleanup   
   they did. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let's start with Bill   
   Chandler of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance. Can you talk about   
   the case of these immigrants?   
      
   BILL CHANDLER: Well, as you stated, a large number of workers were recruited   
   here from all over the country, mainly immigrants and many of them   
   undocumented. And contractors, who we call the "bottom feeders" -- in other   
   words, for example, a primary contractor like Halliburton or Bechtel   
   receives a contract from FEMA to clean up the debris on the coast for about   
   $24 a cubic yard. It is then sub-contracted down through a whole food chain   
   of subcontractors to the bottom feeders, and in most instances, we found   
   that they're getting around $4 a cubic yard. And those are the contractors   
   that have been brought in and brought in immigrants to do the work.   
      
   In many cases, not only the five contractors that we have filed complaints   
   against on behalf of several hundred workers, but a large number more have   
   used all kinds of devices to get out of paying their workers. One, they'll   
   just simply abandon them at a work site after recruiting them here with   
   promises of housing and per diem and decent pay and so on, and they will   
   leave those workers there. We found a group of thirty workers who were   
   abandoned by a contractor in a remote trailer park. They were housed in   
   three trailers, and there was no electricity, no furniture, no nothing,   
   except for water, which at that time was contaminated in Gulfport. And they   
   had been abandoned and not paid. And when we found them, they had gone three   
   days without food. Needless to say we were able to round up food and bedding   
   for those workers, and eventually we found them shelter in faith-based   
   organizations' facilities.   
      
   AMY GOODMAN: Tina Susman, you recently went down to New Orleans. What did   
   you find?   
      
   TINA SUSMAN: Well, the workers that I encountered were men who had been   
   recruited from a homeless shelter in Atlanta. There was several dozen of   
   them. I actually met them at a tent city that had sprung up there that was   
   housing people who had nowhere to live. Individually they started coming up   
   to me and all told me the same story, being recruited by a gentleman who   
   promised them, you know, good hourly wages doing hard labor, hauling debris,   
   for the most part, some construction work in New Orleans. They got on this   
   school bus that was provided. They came down, and most of them had worked   
   several weeks, and each week when they asked for their pay, they were told,   
   "It's coming. It's coming." Eventually they got fed up and they left. I went   
   to the house where they said that they had all been put in rather   
   undesirable conditions, thirty or so men to the house. And there were more   
   men there. They all told me the same story.   
      
   The big problem with these men was just finding out who was actually   
   supposed to pay them. Their assumption, of course, was that the man who had   
   recruited them and promised them the pay should pay them. However when they   
   asked him for the money, he said, "Well, I can't pay you because the company   
   that recruited me hasn't paid me." So I spoke to that company, and it said,   
   "Well, the company that's supposed to pay us hasn't paid us, so we can't pay   
   them." I followed this all the way up the chain, and that is where the   
   problem lies, with the number of subcontractors that are doing business in   
   the Gulf region. A gentleman from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers I spoke   
   to said, "It's not unusual to have fifty subcontractors working beneath the   
   prime contractors."   
      
   AMY GOODMAN: And who are these prime contractors?   
      
   TINA SUSMAN: Well, there are several. In the case that I followed, the prime   
   contractor is ECC out of Burlingame, California. It has about a $500 million   
   contract with the Army Corps of Engineers.   
      
   AMY GOODMAN: How much?   
      
   TINA SUSMAN: $500 million.   
      
   AMY GOODMAN: Half a billion dollars?   
      
   TINA SUSMAN: Yes, and that's not unusual. There are several prime   
   contractors, and these are contractors, as you mentioned -- Halliburton is   
   another -- who are frequently given contracts by the federal government in   
   cases such as this, and then it's understood that they are, therefore, going   
   to hire subcontractors who will then hires subs and subs and subs. The   
   problem begins when there is a glitch somewhere along the way. All it takes   
   is one delay in payment; all it takes is one person somewhere on the chain   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)