Gulf Coast slaves: Halliburton hired undocumented Latino workers to clean

[Julius Civitatus]

up after Katrina -- only to mistreat them and throw them out without pay

Gulf Coast slaves

Halliburton and its subcontractors hired hundreds of undocumented Latino workers to clean up after Katrina -- only to mistreat them and throw them out without pay.

By Roberto Lovato, Salon.com

http://salon.com/news/feature/2005/11/15/halliburton_katrina

You can get a free day pass to read this report in Salon.com

Outrageous. Salon.com breaking this expose of the nasty practices of Halliburton in American soil. It's a very long article, but basically comes down to this:

• After Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, the Bush administration eliminated all sorts of labor laws from the reconstruction efforts, and exempted contractors (read Halliburton) from complying with any of these labor laws.
  
  
• Halliburton recruited huge numbers of undocumented Latino workers, mainly from Mexico and Central America to perform the most unsanitary, labor intensive work in cleaning after the hurricane.
  
  
• Halliburton treated these workers like modern-day slaves, cramming them in barracks and barely even feeding them, but making them work long hours under strenuous and abusive conditions for the promise of $8 per hour.
  
  
• After the work was done, Halliburton kicked these undocumented workers without paying them a penny.

This is what companies like Halliburton can legally do in Bush's America.

:mad:

[twaddler01]

1. Insane...

:puke:

[Julius Civitatus]

2. If Halliburton had existed 300 years ago, they would have cornered

the slave trade market. Seriously.

[twaddler01]

27. I bet they would have n/t

[central scrutinizer]

3. sop

they hired illegal immigrants from Southeast Asia to work in Iraq - some of whom were captured and executed by insurgents. I bet that saved them some back wages

[Julius Civitatus]

7. And if Halliburton got insurance on their workers, they still made money

This is a common practice by many large corporations: they take life insurance policies on their employees, as they are assets to the corporation. This is done without the knowledge or approval of the employee. When the employee dies, the corporation cashes in.

You wouldn't believe how common this is.

Knowing the perverse mentality of these people at Halliburton, I wouldn't be surprised they opened huge insurance policies on all their "assets" in Iraq.

[Richard Steele]

16. That practice is so common, the Insurance Industry has a nickname for it.

It is referred to as "Dead Peasant Insurance."

And it's the REAL reason those lovely folks at Wal-Mart
like to hire those elderly "greeters".

[Julius Civitatus]

18. They profit from your death, and you'll never know it

It's a truly immoral and disgusting practice.

[spindrifter]

8. Also saved homebound transport costs.

:banghead:

[Synnical]

4. A Du'er reported this in October - asked for someone to investigate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4969362&mesg_id=4969362

blitzen (798 posts) Tue Oct-04-05 02:06 PM
Original message
Rumor RE: Halliburton and New Orleans (investigative reporter needed)


I'm in Baton Rouge--just heard something from my friend. He has a hispanic acquaintance who has been helping with the Red Cross in New Orleans the past two weeks. This guy noticed that there were large numbers of Spanish-speaking workers down there. He struck up a conversation and one of the workers told him what was supposed to be "hush-hush": that Halliburton has brought in thousands of Hondurans to do clean up work--paying below the minimum wage. This is obviously an outrage to the good people of NO who are without work. My friend's wife has connections with journalists here and is trying to get someone to do a story. Anyway, it might be good material for some intrepid reporter.

[Angry Girl]

5. And Salon is the only one reporting it.? Just great.

The United States of Amerika.
:grr:

[Synnical]

34. See below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1926334&mesg_id=1930081

[Angry Girl]

36. Thanks

Well, at least it's being reported, so that's better than I thought. Halliburton execs are still free men, however.... Scumbags.

URGENT! Timing is critical to save earthquake victims before winter!

[hippiegranny]

6. there's a guy in my office

who told me he is buying stock in a labor company who is recruiting foreign nationals to clean up NOLA. He claims this is needed because the lazy NOLA residents didn't want the work. I just said to him that if that is what he needed to believe in order to justify himself there was nothing more that I could say. He dropped it fast. Stupid misanthropic Republican.

[AValdoux]

9. A guy in my office...

...said that illegal aliens were hired because "lefty groups" insisted that minorities be hired for the clean up. They couldn't find any minorities who wanted to work. Pathetic. When I mentioned that the contractors pocketed the money but didn't pay the workers. He said it is probably minority owned contractors, because they are the only ones who could get the contracts. He didn't know it was Haliburton that was running out without paying the illegals.


AValdoux

[Julius Civitatus]

11. One-track mind

No matter what you tell those people, it's all the fault of the "darkies," even when it's a blatant case of Halliburton exploiting, abusing, and ultimately not paying these undocumented workers.

Scumbags!

:banghead:

[barb162]

20. I think almost everyone wanted US citizens hired for NOLA

cleanup and renovation work. Especially citizens who were out of work and on unemployment because of Katrina.

[pitohui]

21. a guy in your office is an idiot, but you know that

i've said it before and i'll say it again, anyone who supports illegal immigration supports slavery because the illegal has no recourse if he is cheated, as often happens, why should the contractor pay him anything at all once the work is completed since the illegal can't exactly go to court for redress

people do want to work but there is no housing, a legal citizen is not used to being housed in a tent that is little more than a blue tarp and being fed some beans at the end of the day

[wordpix]

13. this is the way Repukes get rich and keep on repukin'

[spindrifter]

10. This is so friggin' wrong...

there is absolutely no justification for this kind of inhumanity. We must get this out-ed so the nation can start realizing just how greedy these people really are. After all, H"Burton was making mega-bucks and FEMA refuses to re-let the contracts for quite a number of months.

[HeeBGBz]

17. Too bad Halliburton isn't a company you can boycott

It's not like they have products, do they?

[sandnsea]

12. Guest Worker Programs

This is what they are. This is what Republicans support. The Mariana Islands "petri dish".

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?view=plink&id=668

No, Democrats do not support this. They vehemently oppose it. Democrats support earned legalization, reuniting families, support for children who have lived and been educated in the US for years.

[alfredo]

14. Halliburton is being paid with our tax money.

There must be a federal crime there.

[stop the bleeding]

15. Can this be verified by other than Salon.com ???

Seems like MSNBC or someone else would be all over this story, if it were true.

[Julius Civitatus]

19. Salon is a reputable source

They are web-based, but they have creditable standards.

[pitohui]

23. there's a big brouhaha in jefferson parish

there is v. little information that gets out to the public abt jeff parish politics, nola.com (website of the local new orleans newspaper) has hinted that there is a war going on over waste management not picking up the debris, workers not being paid, etc. but we can't get the whole story, jeff parish is mobbed up pretty much top to bottom & it isn't worth yr life to get the news there

in orleans and st. tammany it seems they are just plain not picking up the debris and garbage at all, and fema & waste management are sort of fighting it out with ea. other

in the first few weeks workers were getting great pay for debris removal, $20 an hour, but more recently i hear the rumors of people not being paid & i assume it's because waste management or private fema contractors are now falling back on illegals -- or just pocketing the money and not doing any pick-up at all

there has been no debris pick-up in my neighborhood except at the entrance to the neighborhood, i am pondering the next step, as are the rest of the neighbors, it is clear the parish has been billed for work that will never be done

[Synnical]

29. Wa Po - Nov 4th

From Salon:

In turn, UDR manager Zachary Johnson, who declined to be interviewed for this story, told the Washington Post on Nov. 4 that his company had not been paid by KBR for two months.

I trust someone else can track down the WaPo article?

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[sofa king]

33. Glad to oblige

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/03/AR2005110302066.html

Firms in Gulf Coast Allege Nonpayment
150 Immigrants' Cases Sent to Labor Dept.

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 4, 2005; Page A04

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.

....

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.

....

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.

[lovuian]

22. when the migrant workers figure out they aren't getting paid

they are going to wise up maybe only to be replaced by a new ignorant group!!!

[DFWJock]

24. When

does Cheney get his cut?

[pitohui]

25. there's an endless supply

since there are millions upon millions of displaced people coming now not just from mexico but from central america and even from south america such as ecuador, then i can see why the contractors aren't bothering to pay but i think it is more common just to cheat them & grossly underpay

often, i think, the migrant doesn't catch on because he doesn't know the going rate & doesn't speak any english so he never figures it out, i wonder if some of them from the mayan areas even speak well enough spanish to realize what is going on

a friend was in new orleans during the disaster working security, he quit the security job because it was low paid and joined a clean-up crew, $200 a day, fine while it lasted, then a crew of illegals was put on the job supposedly for $100 a man a day, yeah right, you know damn well the actual workers got maybe $50 a day and the contractor put the rest in his pocket

how can a local compete w. that?

[silverweb]

26. Disgusting!

And illegal!

Forwarded to everyone on my mailing list. This has to be widely publicized. Hoping Olberman and Stewart, at least, pick up on it.

[Julius Civitatus]

28. Kick n/t

[chalky]

30. And a late night (early moring) kick.

n/t

[Julius Civitatus]

31. kickity kick n/t

[Synnical]

32. Kick again n/t

[blackhorse]

35. Nothing new here ...

I was recently in Poland and heard about disgruntled Poles who were illegally hired to help with the WTC disaster cleanup. Now these people are ill because of the materials they came into contact with, and guess what -- the U.S. won't compensate them - because they were illegal workers. I guess that's how official America says "thank you".

Disgusting.

Cheers

BH