Many Workers Lost Jobs, Protections in Wake of Katrina

By Diane E. Lewis

The Boston Globe

Tuesday 11 April 2006

Two Louisiana union officials are joining more than 100 local labor leaders today in a demonstration downtown to protest the loss of jobs and worker protections in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Robert Hammond, the president of the 1,800-member International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 130, said New Orleans firms and workers have been shut out of the rebuilding process.

Brenda Mitchell, the president of the United Teachers of New Orleans, said the local school district has refused to honor a contract with her 4,700-member union.

"We need those jobs to rebuild the city and our lives," said Hammond.

Hammond said 85 electricians from his union were hired by a small minority-owned company that employs African-American electricians to work at a naval site in New Orleans. Knight Enterprises, realizing that many of the workers were homeless and broke, offered $28 an hour, meals, and tents as part of a six-month contract.

But three weeks after the unionized electricians began working at the site, the company that had contracted Knight replaced the workers with Mexican electricians earning 50 percent less, Hammond said.

The African-American electricians lost their jobs shortly after the Bush administration temporarily suspended pay provisions under the Davis-Bacon Act. The law mandates that tradesmen and women employed on federal construction projects must be paid the prevailing local wage.

In November, after yielding to the demands of moderate Republicans, the Bush administration reinstated Davis-Bacon. But Hammond said the law's suspension continues to affect members of his union. None, he said, have been able to find jobs comparable to the ones they lost.

More than 90 percent of the rebuilding contracts have gone to firms outside New Orleans, according to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat.

Kennedy is sponsoring a bill requiring that 50 percent of all federal jobs created by the New Orleans rebuilding go to local businesses and workers affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Mitchell said many teachers lost positions after the Louisiana state legislature redistricted the state's public schools, and set aside collective bargaining agreements with her union.

The Greater Boston Labor Council invited the pair to Boston after local unions raised more than $100,000 in cash, goods and services for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Meg Casper, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Education, said the state was forced to take drastic action because of the scope of the disaster.

Rich Rogers, executive secretary-treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor Council, said the group will protest outside FEMA's offices downtown because the agency did not adequately provide for New Orleans residents during Hurricane Katrina.