Working on Faith A Faithful Response to Worker Abuse in New Orleans Acknowledgements This work was made possible through a joint grant of the Rights in Humanitarian Crises and Economic Justice programs of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC). UUSC is a human rights organization with a commitment to responding to disasters and economic crises. This report was also funded in part by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. We thank them for their support but acknowledge that the findings and conclusions presented in this report are those of the authors alone, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Foundation. Support for this project also came from Church World Service and the Interdenominational Theological Center. Principal Author and Researcher: Ted Smukler Preface: Kim Bobo Voices of Faith: Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou Graphic Design: Jana Winch Research Assistance: Hollen Reischer, Jose Oliva Content Review and Edits: Elisabeth Solomon, Hollen Reischer, Kim Bobo, Cynthia Brooke, Rabbi Robert Marx, Bill Lucy, Charese Jordan, Vernal Coleman Table of Contents Preface. 2 Executive Summary. 3 DOL Fails Workers. 4 Lorenzo’s Story. 6 Working on Faith: Workers and the Larger Context. 7 Insuring Worker Abuse. 8 Bearing Witness for Workers’ Rights. 10 IWJ’s Survey Results Support Other Findings. 11 How Has the U.S. Department of Labor Responded to the Crisis?. 12 DOL – Measures of Decline. 14 Immigrant Workers: The View from the IWJ Network of Workers’ Centers. 16 Ideology Trumps Faithfulness. 18 Call to Action. 19 Voices of Faith. 21 Appendices Gulf Coast Commission on Reconstruction Equity Members . 24 IWJ New Orleans Summer Interns. 25 IWJ Network of Workers’ Centers. 25 End Notes. 26 IWJ Board of Directors. inside back cover Contents Working on Faith: A Faithful Response to Worker Abuse in New Orleans Preface obligations and federal and state labor laws, it is the job of the federal When Hurricane Katrina battered New government, through the U.S. Orleans in August of 2005 and thousands Department of Labor (DOL), to protect were left stranded in the city, the winds the most vulnerable workers. exposed New Orleans’ twin plagues of poverty and racism. While large IWJ has long supported a strong and contractors reaped substantial profits effective U.S. Department of Labor. Over from disaster relief and rebuilding, the years, IWJ advocated and engaged thousands struggled without jobs or in in partnerships with the DOL. IWJ jobs that paid poverty wages. Our moral developed congregational bulletin inserts conscience cries out against such abuses. on worker rights, training manuals for advocates, poultry workers’ rights The clean-up and rebuilding process in materials, and local community alliances New Orleans offered the opportunity and workers’ centers that assist workers to change New Orleans – not to rebuild in filing complaints. it like it had been, but to reform and renew this unique city on a foundation New Orleans is the face of preventable of justice. Specifically, federal and local exploitation. As this report illustrates, officials could have collaborated with the DOL has been ill-equipped to deal the faith community, labor unions and with the scale and spread of employer community organizers to promote a high lawlessness that has overtaken the Gulf wage/good jobs strategy to transform Coast. Therefore, IWJ is creating the and remake the political and moral Interfaith Worker Justice Center of New economy of New Orleans and the Gulf Orleans (IWJ-NOLA) with the mission Coast. From a city that had been near the to respect work, rebuild community bottom of the nation in economic, crime and restore hope. In tandem with the and educational indicators, New Orleans religious community and allies from could have become a national model organized labor, IWJ calls on the DOL to for eliminating poverty and reducing collaborate with IWJ-NOLA to empower endemic racism. workers, promote fair and legal labor You shall not practices, and work for good jobs for all But to date, rebuilding and workers, including those who have not withhold the reconstruction efforts have offered been able to return to their city. wages of the only old patterns of injustice – a few well-connected contractors receiving The limitations of labor law enforcement poor and needy enormous contracts, while workers are are national in scope. While IWJ has laborers. paid a pittance and labor violations run maintained open and positive relations rampant. Poverty and racism are being with the administrators and workers at –Deuteronomy reinforced, not challenged. the DOL over the past decade, we call 24:14 on Congress and the administration The treatment of workers should reflect to revitalize the DOL and rethink its moral values. As children of God, mission on behalf of workers. Finally, IWJ everyone is entitled to a just wage and challenges faith communities to join in dignity in their labor. These values are the effort to serve the needs of vulnerable reflected in the mission and programs of workers. All religions believe in justice Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ). and must bring that belief to action. Though unions have been successful in Kim Bobo, Executive Director, the past at enforcing both contractual Interfaith Worker Justice 2 Interfaith Worker Justice Working on Faith: Executive an office for workers to come forward is Summary ludicrous. The enforcement mechanisms of the DOL are wholly ineffective Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) surveyed given the scale of the catastrophe and and interviewed 218 workers in New the largely unregulated and lawless Orleans during the summer of 2006, employment markets of New Orleans. on the approach to the anniversary of In many instances, organized labor has Hurricane Katrina. The survey results been the driving force in bringing cases indicate that workers of all races have of worker abuse to the attention of the experienced abuses of fundamental DOL. However, the inadequate protection rights, including not receiving wages for of workers’ rights is certainly not a new their work and non-payment of overtime situation in New Orleans or throughout (wage theft), exposure to toxins without the south, a region that has historically proper safety training or equipment, been aggressively non-union and so workplace injuries without workers’ lacks a major partner with the DOL in compensation, and discrimination. enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act Key results include: and Occupational Safety and Health • 47 percent of workers reported Act. However, the post-Katrina period not receiving all the pay they were has magnified the problem through the entitled to while working in New displacement of hundreds of thousands of Orleans since Katrina. residents and the influx of thousands of • 55 percent said they received no immigrant workers. overtime pay for hours worked The decline of the DOL’s enforcement beyond 40 per week. capacity is not merely a question of • 58 percent stated they were exposed incapacity to deal with a crisis of the to dangerous substances at work magnitude of the Gulf Coast hurricanes such as mold, contaminated water of 2005, but is national in scope. In and asbestos. numerous studies, enforcement capacity at • Workers were unaware that the Men shall have the DOL has been steadily declining since U.S. Department of Labor was an the late1970s. the benefit of agency charged with protecting what they earn, their rights. Not one worker Interfaith Worker Justice organized mentioned the DOL as either a the Gulf Coast Commission on and women source of information about worker Reconstruction Equity (GCCRE) and has shall have the rights or as an agency to which one engaged the religious community in a could file complaints. discussion of how New Orleans should be benefit of what rebuilt with moral and faithful integrity. The vast majority of workers do not IWJ is launching the Interfaith Worker they earn. know who to turn to when their rights Justice Center of New Orleans (IWJ- are violated. Yet the DOL’s enforcement –Qur’an 4:32 NOLA) to spearhead these efforts, which model is based primarily on individuals are summarized in the Call to Action coming forward with complaints, rather (which concludes this report): than investigations that target industries and employers known to be hotbeds of 1. Congress should strengthen and labor abuse. If workers don’t know where expand the U.S. Department of to turn, and many (36 percent in the IWJ Labor, especially the Wage and survey) feel unsafe taking any complaint Hour Division and the Occupational to a government office, then waiting in Safety and Health Administration, 3 Working on Faith: A Faithful Response to Worker Abuse in New Orleans to protect workers and prosecute include building trades, health care, companies that routinely violate the and services, and workers’ right law. (More detailed proposals are to organize must be bolstered and included in the Call to Action). protected. • Targeted Investments in High 2. The Department of Labor Road, High Wage Sector Programs: should expand its education and Policy makers should support enforcement activities in the Gulf partnerships among employers, Coast without robbing other regions unions, religious and community of needed staff. The DOL should: groups to implement industry- • Budget for more investigators in focused investments that address the New Orleans office and other specific workforce and economic regional offices. development needs, in sectors of • Be transparent in all its operations, the economy that can support high through open sharing of wage jobs. information, including the status of investigations and resource needs, These are steps toward a renewed New with strategic partners, including Orleans and a new Gulf Coast that IWJ-NOLA. can be a pillar of good jobs and fair • Create a Community and Faith- and equitable social standards. Those based Task Force in New Orleans displaced by Hurricane Katrina must with faith groups, unions and other have a meaningful path to return if worker rights advocates to end they choose to do so, with decent labor abuses.