Laissez les Mauvais Temps Roulez -- Workers' Rights in New Orleans

When Hurricane Katrina devastated my home state of Louisiana -- particularly the great city of New Orleans -- there was practically round-the-clock coverage of the disaster. The airwaves were dominated by stories of the madness and mayhem among the desperate survivors stuck in the Superdome, separated from loved ones, the same folks who were then forced to evacuate and leave everything behind.

Now, almost a year since the levees broke, what is the progress of reconstruction? Is the area recovering? Are her residents returning? Is the government striving to correct the massive wrongs caused by its incompetence and gross negligence when the storm hit? Are the rights of those workers who toil for subcontracted construction companies protected and upheld?

In a word -- NO!

In the report "And Injustice for All: Workers Lives in the Reconstruction of New Orleans" (compiled and written by UUSC program partners the Advancement Project, National Immigration Law Center, and the New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition), the stories of evacuees and immigrants laboring on the reconstruction of New Orleans are uplifted to reveal the deplorable situation of former residents and workers in the Crescent City.

The report draws the connection between evacuees and reconstruction workers because of the common "unprecedented level of exploitation." People are forced to "live and work amid substandard conditions, homelessness, poverty, toxicity, under the threat of police and immigration raids, and without any guarantee of a fair day's pay, if they are paid at all. They also face structural barriers that make it impossible to hold public or private institutions accountable for their mistreatment."

New Orleanians are wrestling with deep racial-cultural divides, entrenched poverty, structural discrimination and racism, frightening levels of violence that arise from dispair -- and all of this is compounded by little or no accountability for the institutions that should combat these problems. It is a deplorable, dire situation.

As a Louisianan, I am ashamed and outraged by my state's residents and elected officials who have not fulfilled their responsibility to those who are suffering in the reconstruction effort. My outrage is dwarfed only by the magnitude of the problems of structural and interpersonal racism that plague my entire state, that the devastation wrought by Katrina exposed and the current plight of the evacuees (even those in my hometown) continues to confirm.

As a seminarian, I am righteously indignant about the blatant disregard for human life in the wake of Katrina by persons of faith who, by their actions or even in their complacency, seem to have forgotten biblical imperatives to build just economic community, to uplift the downtrodden, to practice radical egalitarianism, and to strive for social justice in the face of exploitation, hate, and empire.

As an intern at UUSC, I am hopeful thanks to knowledge of our Economic Justice Program partners in New Orleans. The New Orleans Worker Center is striving to be a place where workers are educated about their rights and get legal support in the fight against exploitation, wage theft, and unsafe conditions -- a place where laborers are empowered to organize with their allies and to become leaders in their own communities and workplaces.

Now, what can I do to contribute to their efforts?