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For immigrant laborers, Big Easy more Wild West
New Orleans appears a jackpot, but some find cashing in is tough

09:51 PM CST on Monday, January 16, 2006
By DIANNE SOLÃ?S / The Dallas Morning News

NEW ORLEANS – Melvin Diaz is a new fixture in the newly revived French Quarter.

He's a 21-year-old underweight construction worker from Dallas. And he's one of several thousand Latin immigrants from Texas and elsewhere who are cleaning up and rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina.

They're drawn by the enticement of more pay in a city virtually drained of workers. But what they encounter is a "Wild West town," as one contractor put it.

Mr. Diaz and scores of other workers said they toil in an effective suspension of labor rights and employment rules. Some don't get paid. Others aren't given safety equipment. Housing is so short that many sleep in trucks or live in tents in the city's largest park.

To make matters worse, the influx of immigrant workers has stirred resentment among New Orleans natives.

Latinos accounted for 3 percent of the city's 445,000 pre-Katrina residents. Official counts are hard to come by today, but Latinos may make up as much as 20 percent of the city's roughly 144,000 post-Katrina inhabitants, according to estimates from demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution and other observers.

In December, Orlando Igacio removed boards that were damaged when Hurricane Katrina flooded a New Orleans home. These tensions make New Orleans the latest flashpoint in the nation's ongoing debate over immigrant workers – both legal and illegal.

In New Orleans, as in other cities, Latin migrants can be found in some of the most menial jobs. Yet even as employers readily snap up the new workforce in a city that has lost two-thirds of its population, some politicians and residents decry the arrivals as an economic threat.

The rhetoric stings among workers who say they're already battling low pay and marginal working conditions.

"I've worked at companies that don't pay, or those that give checks that can't be cashed. Some have given me bad food, and I had to go to the hospital," said Mr. Diaz, who's on his fourth job after arriving here three months ago as part of a crew to clear debris at a hotel.

He is treated better now than at the other three jobs, he said. But in apparent violation of the law, his paycheck shows no signs of hours logged, overtime, workers' compensation or taxes sent to the state and federal government.

Other workers say some employers fail to take safety precautions or provide protective masks, suits and gloves.

Salvador Calderón, a 42-year-old from southern Mexico who last lived in Houston, has a nasty rash over his torso. He can't find a doctor or free clinic and has no transportation.

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Mr. Calderón isn't certain if his rash comes from the mold and debris he's handled cleaning houses, where there have been snakes, rats and spoiled food that's made other workers vomit.

It could also be his living conditions, he said, pointing to the stained red carpeting in his hotel room.

Mr. Calderón is paid $100 a day. He and a workmate spend $70 a day living in a tawdry hotel where a portion of the damaged roof has yet to be repaired.

His workmate, who goes only by Jose, defends his friend: "They promised us vaccines, and we never got them. We are not so stupid; many of us have made it to the ninth grade."

Contractors and subcontractors see dollar signs in New Orleans.

It will cost billions to rebuild homes, businesses, public buildings, roads and levees in Louisiana. State officials recently put the damage estimates from hurricanes Katrina and Rita at $75 billion to $100 billion.

New Orleans is still deep in cleanup and demolition; extensive reconstruction could be months or years away.

With few people willing to do the dirty work – and with legal workers scarce – many contractors and subcontractors hire anyone they can get.

While some are known to abuse workers, others say they run into red tape themselves getting paid, thus slowing payments to workers.

ElÃÂ*as Sánchez, a small subcontractor, said he brought six trucks from Houston and has yet to be paid in full on his $100,000 contract. He's been waiting two weeks for the last $30,000.

"The problem here is that we are all in the same ballgame," said Mr. Sánchez, who is paid by a large contractor.

"They say they will pay us, and they don't. They say FEMA will pay them, and they are waiting," he said in reference to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Federal officials acknowledge the labor problems along the Gulf Coast.

Last month, the Department of Labor sent five Spanish-speaking investigators to "boost compliance" when it reopened its offices in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, three months after the storm hit on Aug. 29.

Investigators have received a "significant amount" of complaints with insufficient information, such as the employer's name, phone number or address, spokeswoman Dolline Hatchett wrote in an e-mail.

But, thus far, the level of complaints is about the same as before Katrina, she wrote.

Chris Newman, a Spanish-speaking legal programs coordinator with the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said most immigrants are simply too afraid to come forward with their complaints – or too tired from long hours of work.

Mr. Calderón, the worker with the rash, said he thought of filing a complaint but concluded, "I didn't come here to file lawsuits but to work."

Mr. Diaz, who is among the undocumented immigrants, pointed out that "people don't pay attention if you don't have papers."

The Labor Department said it "recognizes that many workers are reluctant to file complaints because of their immigration status."

Its wage and hour division enforces the Fair Labor Standards Act, which provides for minimum wage and overtime pay "without regard to whether an employee is documented or undocumented," Ms. Hatchett said.

Hence, the department plans to hold a joint event with the Mexican Consulate on Jan. 25 and send another Spanish-speaking team of investigators in early February, she said.

Meanwhile, at a few day labor sites, some groups are trying to help the workers learn their rights.

Along Canal Street, with its newly reopened hotels and tchotchkes stores, Mr. Newman of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network chats up immigrants who are huddled together for warmth on a damp, chilly December morning.

He passes out a green booklet so workers can record their employers' information – even the boss' license plate should he try to stiff them. It reads: Labor law protects you, if you have or have not documents.

Mr. Newman spots a labor contractor known for stiffing workers and watches workers move away from the man.

At a recent march to New Orleans City Hall by a group calling for "Justice after Katrina," Marielena Hincapié of the National Immigration Law Center said she's never encountered a situation like that along the Gulf Coast.

Among the most troubling reports she's heard: workers held virtually captive at housing and work sites or given no safety equipment.

Immigrant workers in the region have few advocates, Ms. Hincapié said. The Los Angeles lawyer said she's organizing dozens of law students to come to their aid in January.

Adding to the pressure are the tensions between New Orleanians and the immigrant workers.

In October, Mayor Ray Nagin worried out loud before a business group about how to "stop New Orleans from being overrun by Mexican workers."

Civil rights leaders in Washington quickly chastised him, but his words cut deep.

"We are used to hard work, but the mayor needs to understand what we are going through, the effort we are making and the conditions we work in," said Mr. Calderón. "We put up with insults and discrimination. All of this is so that Louisiana can go back to the way it used to be."

Mr. Nagin later said in a radio interview that he didn't have "anything against Latinos." Then he added, "But right now I think the preference is on hiring people who are not from New Orleans. And I just don't think that's right."

Before Katrina, New Orleans was more than two-thirds black. Now one is as likely to see a Latino.

One Honduran-born contractor, who's lived in New Orleans for 30 years, contends that a lot of very poor residents who evacuated the city now live better in exile.

"It is going to take some time before they come back – if they come back," said J. MarÃÂ*n. "We need people who want to work and come to the city to get the job done, whether they are Mexican or Chinese."

But other longtime residents feel uncomfortable with the changing demographics.

An African-American native of New Orleans surveys the Spanish-speaking men around him at a Western Union in the still-elegant French Quarter.

"I want to see my regular people come back," said Gene Thomas, a demolition contractor from New Orleans' flood-prone Ninth Ward. "Some will. Hopefully, all of them."

He returned to clean debris and mold from houses, but a good chunk of what he earns is gobbled by hotel bills.

"I just do it so I can be home," Mr. Thomas said. But he won't hire immigrant workers, saying he can't understand their language.

In the Bywater area of New Orleans, Mr. MarÃÂ*n became a contractor after he had trouble finding workers to fix the roof on his rental house. His big advantage was his fluency in Spanish.

"A lot of people would not work in these conditions," he said. But Mr. MarÃÂ*n said the migrant workers "understand this is a Wild West town."

"They still think gold is waiting to be found here."

E-mail dsolis@dallasnews.com