Immigrant workers risk danger for storm cash

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Business

Immigrant workers risk danger for storm cash

By _MARY LOU PICKEL_ (mailto:mpickel@...)

News Service

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

ATLANTA — At the day labor pickup spot by the Home Depot on Sydney Marcus

Boulevard in Atlanta, workers leave for the Gulf Coast every few days as

contractors stop and offer them jobs.

They'll eagerly take work cleaning out maggot-infested food from

refrigerators in New Orleans hotel kitchens and gutting homes and businesses

containing

asbestos and toxic sludge.

The huge, multibillion-dollar cleanup task on the Gulf Coast is a magnet for

immigrant workers, legal and illegal. Although some are happy with their

jobs, others find that the conditions aren't what they had hoped. Many

immigrants have fallen victim to unscrupulous contractors and thieving

co-workers.

They also fear disease and deportation.

But there are many willing to take the risk.

Few ask questions before they hop into a contractor's van, and many don't

know the name of the company they work for. They go on the promise of wages of

$9 to $12 an hour.

At the Hispanic Community Support Center in Duluth, Ga., de Socorro

Vargas, 40, of Mexico looked for another job after two weeks of hauling

hurricane debris in Mississippi.

" I came back because I didn't like the place, " Vargas said. " I didn't

like the way they were treating me. " She was housed in a budget hotel in

Pensacola, Fla., with two dozen other workers from metro Atlanta.

She said one of her co-workers stole $400 from her and that she didn't feel

safe anymore. She paid $50 to take a Greyhound bus back to Atlanta. " I'm

sorry I went, " Vargas said.

Nonetheless, she made $108 per day and wired money to her mother in Mexico,

who needs it for food and other living expenses, she said.

Vargas doesn't know whom she worked for. All she knows is that someone

came to her apartment complex looking for people willing to do hard work.

Imelda Olguin, 43, sitting beside Vargas at the day labor center, said

she also signed up to go but then changed her mind.

" I was afraid of disease, " Olguin said. " I saw the dead people on TV and I

said, 'I'm not going.' "

The show of National Guard force in New Orleans also spooked some illegal

immigrants, who doubted that being near so many police was a good idea.

While federal officials have taken little notice of illegal immigrants

working on the cleanup, sheriff's deputies entered a Red Cross shelter in Long

Beach, Miss., last month and demanded identification from dozens of people who

looked Hispanic, according to news reports. They were concerned that the

shelter was being used to house out-of-town construction workers.

Actually, many of the 50 or so Mexican-American men in the shelter were

residents of Pass Christian, Miss., who had lost everything in the storm, said

Remedios Gomez Arnau, consul general of the Mexican Consulate in Atlanta. They

had sought refuge in the shelter and had been recruited to do construction

work too, she said. No one was deported.

'Turning their heads'

Warren, political director for the Louisiana Carpenters Regional

Council, said many illegal immigrants are cleaning out sludge dust without

proper

protection.

" There are molds and funguses growing, " Warren said. New Orleans was flooded

with water that contained petroleum products, benzene, other chemicals and

human waste. That left a sludge that dried and turned into dust.

" You have all of these particles that are going to be inhaled and are going

to cause respiratory problems, " Warren said. " They will manifest themselves

later as allergies and asthma. "

Warren said the Environmental Protection Agency, Occupational Safety and

Health Administration and Department of Homeland Security are " all kind of

turning their heads " to the problem.

One subcontractor, Construction Management Services of sville, Ga.,

requires its workers to use so-called moon suits and breathing masks. The

company works for Belfor, a multinational company with many contracts for

cleanup

of private companies on the Gulf Coast. CMS will fire a worker who doesn't

use the mask.

'They treat us like animals'

A young El Salvadoran at the Home Depot day labor spot said the company

fired him for not using his mask. He thought it was overkill.

He didn't like the job anyway, he said, because there was nothing to do

after work except sleep or watch TV. Biloxi, Miss., was nearly destroyed, and

no

stores were open.

In a New Orleans suburb last week, a group of about 30 Hispanic immigrants,

many of them legal, said that another Belfor subcontractor, ITT of Charlotte,

brought them in vans from Houston and wanted to let them go after only one

day of work. Others said they were owed back pay.

" They treat us like animals, " said Frias, 20, of Houston. Many

weren't sure how they would get home.

ITT seems prepared for such complaints. In workers' hotel rooms were

handwritten signs in Spanish explaining that fired workers would get their

checks at

their home address.

Efforts to contact ITT's president were unsuccessful, but a supervisor who

listened to the workers' complaints said some crew chiefs had not recorded

workers' hours properly and that there were problems with the payroll.

The displaced workers said they wouldn't budge.

Miranda, 32, originally from Cuba, was among them. " I'm not leaving

until I get my money, " he said.

Lou Pickel writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail:

mpickel@...