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Come Fire or Flood, Incarcerated Workers are Saving Our Lives

Sept. 13: Valley View inmate firefighters working in Butte County, CA

As fire and hurricane seasons become longer and increasingly dangerous, incarcerated workers are on the frontlines fighting to protect our communities. Often risking their own lives to save those on the outside, these workers receive little pay if any.

In California, thousands of incarcerated firefighters receive only $2-$5 a day and an additional $1 per hour during active fires even though they have the same training as Cal Fire’s non-incarcerated firefighters who earn an average of more than $70,000 per year. The State of California has admitted stealing $100 million per year in wages from incarcerated firefighters.

Louisiana: Unpaid incarcerated workers from Hunt Correctional Center work 12-hour shifts to make tens of thousands of sandbags ahead of Hurricane Barry in 2019.

Here on the Gulf Coast, incarcerated workers regularly work during storms and other disasters such as oil spills. In Louisiana, those who work on storm preparation and recovery are generally not paid even a penny for their long hours.

None of us is free while any remains in chains, and no worker should tolerate slave wages for any other worker. Not only is this exploitation wrong but it results in our own inability to find work at decent wages. If governments and other employers are allowed to pay slave wages to incarcerated workers, why would they decrease their profits by paying even minimum wage to someone on the outside?

Workers unite across the prison bars! Together, we will win!

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Pass the Emergency Worker Dignity and Safety Ordinance!

The disaster at the Hard Rock was preventable. Workers had documented the shoddy construction and corners cut days before the collapse, but the bosses ignored their warnings. In order to prevent another deadly incident of this sort, workers urgently need to be able to walk off the job if they deem the worksite a threat to their lives. If this right cannot be enforced by a union contract, it should be protected by city law. Every worker in New Orleans deserves this basic protection.

Workers should be free to exercise their rights without fear of retaliation or loss of work and wages; otherwise, a right is a right in name only. The case of Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma, the Hard Rock worker who was captured by ICE and deported for taking the courageous step of blowing the whistle on criminal developers, should be an outrage to all workers. To tolerate this type of terrorism is to give the bosses a free pass to walk over any right or protection that stands in the way of their profits.

The New Orleans Workers Group has proposed and is petitioning signatures for the following Emergency Worker Dignity and Safety Ordinance to be passed by the city as soon as possible. Sign the petition here. The ordinance is as follows:

  • The City’s immediate response and top priority is to properly and safely remove people’s bodies from an accident site so that their families can begin to have closure.
  • Any group of workers who decide that their job site conditions are unsafe have the right to walk off the job free of penalty and with the day’s pay.
  • Such action, and/or any potential accident, will immediately trigger an independent investigation.
  • Workers who walk off their job for safety concerns will be protected from termination.
  • Workers classified as 1099 contractors are protected under the ordinance.
    Workers’ rights to walk off the job due to safety concerns are protected under the ordinance regardless of documentation status and are protected from ICE involvement and deportation.
  • All workers who utilize their right to walk off an unsafe job are protected from retaliation and termination should they go to the press about their experience. This is to protect “whistleblowers.”
  • Workers will receive full pay and benefits for the time they are unable to work until employers address the workplace safety conditions.

To get involved in the campaign to pass the Emergency Worker Dignity and Safety Ordinance, contact the New Orleans Workers Group:

nolaworkersgroup@gmail.com or 504-671-7853.

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New Orleans: Demand City Return Killed Hard Rock Workers to Their Families Before Demolition

Five months have gone by and the Hard Rock building still stands as a testimony to the murderous greed of the developer group 1031 Canal Development, LLC and the criminal indifference of the city. For killing three workers, causing injuries to 18 workers and lost wages for hundreds more, and for disrupting bus service on 21 lines, the developers have yet to be charged with any crime. Nor have they paid a dime for the havoc their greed and negligence has caused.

Worse, five months have gone by and the remains of two of the workers killed in the disaster, Quinnyon Wimberley and Jose Ponce Arreola, have yet to be removed from the rubble. Their families have been denied the basic dignity of a proper burial while the city claims to have already spent more $12 million to deal with the fallout from the collapse. New Orleans residents deserve a full accounting of this figure. How much of this money could have been spent hiring a crew that specializes in excavating human remains from buildings damaged by earthquakes or bombings?

Now, against the wishes of the mourning families, Mayor Cantrell has ordered the building to be demolished with the bodies of the killed workers inside. This outrage cannot stand. The city estimates that the demolition and recovery will cost an additional $11 million at least. This money should go towards the safe removal of the killed workers before the building is imploded. The families of Quinnyon Wimberley and Jose Ponce Arreola deserve respect!