Immigrant abuse charged in Katrina clean up

November 25, 2005 Headlines | Immigrant abuse charged in Katrina clean up: "NEW ORLEANS ? Halliburton, the energy products and services giant whose name has become synonymous with no-bid contracts and corporate cronyism, is accused of exploiting immigrants and undocumented workers.

Halliburton, through its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) was granted a $124 million contract to clean up the city post-Hurricane Katrina..

Writing for Salon.com, Roberto Lovato recounts his observations in the storm-ravaged region, including 'squalid trailer parks where up to 19 unpaid, unfed and undocumented [Halliburton subsidiary] KBR site workers inhabited a single trailer for $70 per person, per week.' Many suffer from work-related health problems, including diarrhea, sprained ankles, as well as cuts and bruises acquired while working for KBR, he claims.

At one point, undocumented workers were thrown off the job and forced to live in the streets of New Orleans after Halliburton refused to pay a subcontractor for two months. Seventy-four workers filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor seeking $56,000 in back pay, Lovato reports.

One Halliburton subcontractor threatened several Latino workers with deportation if they left the Belle Chasse military base in Louisiana, where an estimated 500 immigrants are employed. Although Halliburton denies violating labor laws, immigration enforcement officials discovered undocumented workers at Belle Chasse in October. 'Visits to the naval bases and dozens of interviews by Salon confirm that undocumented workers are in the facilities,' Lovato writes.

The tactics are similar to those used in Iraq, according to the expos?. Workers from poor countries have been lured to the Gulf Coast by shady job brokers who offer wages and benefits that rarely pan out. 'They were going to pay seven dollars an hour, and the food was going to be free, and rent, but they gave us nothing,' a teenage worker from Mexico told Lovato. 'They weren't feeding us. We ate cookies for five days. Cookies, nothing else.'

The underlying problem is a labyrinth of contractors, subcontractors and job brokers, overseen by no single agency. James Hale, vice president of the Laborers' International Union of North America, remarked that the resulting lack of accountability is an 'open invitation for exploitation, fraud and abuse.'"