AFL-CIO mobilizes 1,000 Katrina volunteers

WASHINGTON, D.C. — With tens of thousands of Gulf Coast unionists and their families homeless, jobless and in need of aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, the national AFL-CIO is mobilizing at least 1,000 volunteers to Red Cross relief sites.

The federation and many of its affiliated unions have created disaster relief funds and dispatched volunteers to aid citizens. Members of Portland Fire Fighters Local 43 and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 employed as emergency medical technicians at American Medical Response are on the ground assisting in the Gulf Coast region.

“Union members are among the first to step up and offer help when it is needed — and this situation demands an immediate and massive effort,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

The AFL-CIO volunteers will be deployed to areas where they are needed most as a part of on-the-ground relief efforts. Conditions will be very tough, Sweeney said. Volunteers do not need special training, but must be healthy and able to work in a difficult situation. Those interested can e-mail the AFL-CIO at: [email protected]

The AFL-CIO, state labor federations and central labor councils have set up Worker Centers for evacuees — union and non-union — at the Harris County Central Labor Committee headquarters in Houston, at the Plumbers and Pipefitters Hall in Pearl, Miss., near Gulfport, in Mobile, Ala., Atlanta and Baton Rouge.

At the centers, displaced workers can learn about jobs, get instant access to computers, benefit from their unions’ health and welfare services and find basic relief. The AFL-CIO has shipped computers to the sites to enable evacuees and others to get up-to-date information and let loved ones know they are safe.

The Worker Centers will identify priority needs of evacuees in their areas and will collect and distribute donated supplies. AFL-CIO Community Services liaisons, AFL-CIO staff and American Federation of Teachers volunteers are helping the state federations run the centers. Union members can volunteer by calling the centers in: Houston: 713-923-9473; Pearl: 601-664-3897; and Mobile: 251-478-0162.

Hurricane Katrina disrupted the lives and jobs of hundreds of thousands of workers — and at least 30,000 unionized oil workers, shipyard workers, teachers, public employees, health care workers, firefighters and others. It caused record damage in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and left almost all of New Orleans under up to 20 feet of water after levees burst following a storm surge. Virtually all of the 485,000-person city, plus its suburbs, have been evacuated. Millions were without power, water or shelter for days.

Evacuees told union colleagues in Shreveport, in northwest Louisiana, that New Orleans and nearby damaged areas would be uninhabitable for months. “There are whole cities that are completely gone,” said Joanne Powers of the United Steel Workers.

Three union shipyards — Avondale outside of New Orleans, and those in Gulfport and Pascagoula, Miss. — were under water as a result of the Category 4, 145-mph hurricane and its accompanying 25-foot storm surge.  

The United Steel Workers reported unionized oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, where its members worked, were shut down due to lack of power. Some floating rigs broke loose from their moorings and had to be retrieved before they crashed into other oil facilities and caused further damage, news reports said.

The one exception, according to Glenn Devenney, editor of the Labor Leader in Shreveport, was the Citgo refinery in Lake Charles, La. Evacuees told him it planned to increase production to make up for closures elsewhere.  

International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO, members in the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast districts were hit hard by the disaster. “Hundreds of our members suffered terrible losses as a result of this devastating hurricane,” said President John Bowers. “Lives have been lost, many more have been injured, homes destroyed and jobs eliminated. It is our duty and obligation as ILA members to help our brothers and sisters in need.”

The union’s Executive Council approved a donation of $1 million to go into its Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. The ILA’s Atlantic Coast District Executive Board approved a $500,000 donation.

The generosity of unions nationwide has been staggering — and too numerous to mention them all. Here are a few:

• The national AFL-CIO’s Union Community Fund has a goal of raising $500,000 by the end of September. Tax deductible donations can be sent to: Union Community Fund Hurricane Relief Fund, P.O. Box 27306, Washington, D.C., 20038-7306, or go online at www.aflcio.org.

• Delegates to the Communications Workers of America convention in Chicago voted Aug. 30 to send up to $4 million in hurricane relief aid to help CWA families in the area.

• In Baton Rouge, five building trades locals are using their halls as “processing centers” to connect displaced workers in shelters with new jobs. The Sheet Metal Workers, Boilermakers, Carpenters, Plumbers and Pipefitters and Iron Workers have contributed $100,000 to provide funds, transportation and moving assistance for workers and their families who relocate for work.

• The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades established a Finishing Industries Disaster Relief Fund to assist more than 1,400 members displaced by the storm. The union leadership authorized a $1 million donation to the fund and called on its 140,000-plus members for donations.

At press time it was approaching the $2 million mark.

In addition, the Finishing Contractors Association, which represents many painting and allied trades employers, has pledged to raise $2 million. The union and contractors’ association also are working together to create a national job bank for members and to provide shelter for members who travel to work in their new jobs.

• The American Federation of Teachers is planning to recruit and send additional teachers to the Gulf Coast to help stressed area school systems instruct the evacuated children.

• The Bricklayers and Iron Workers are sending mobile trailers and tractor trailers to the area, and the Transport Workers Union local in Houston is providing housing for families now settled in the Astrodome.

• AFSCME reported that its 3,300 public service employee members in Louisiana “will soon be back on the job in all levels of government.”

• Aid also came from the Air Line Pilots, Machinists, Postal Workers, Federal Government Employees, performing artists’ unions, and the Air Traffic Controllers. That union planned caravans of relief supplies, including food, baby wipes, bug spray and generators. 

Union relief funds are listed on the AFL-CIO’s hurricane relief Web page at [email protected].

© Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc.