A pattern is emerging as the cleanup of Mississippi's Gulf Coast
morphs into its multibillion-dollar reconstruction: Come payday,
untold numbers of Hispanic immigrant laborers are being stiffed.
Laptop Battery Sometimes, the boss simply vanishes. Other workers wait on
promises that soon, someone in a complex hierarchy of contractors
will provide the funds to pay them.
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Thinkpad Nonpayment of wages is a violation of federal labor law, but
these workers - thousands of them, channeled into teams that corral
debris, swaddle punctured roofs in blue tarps and gut rain-ravaged
homes - are especially vulnerable because many are here
illegally.
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Microsoft After Katrina hit, Armando Ojeda paid $1,200 to be smuggled
across the desert border from Mexico, a walk that took several
nights. Talk of $10 an hour - more in a day than he made each week
at a computer factory back home - led him to pay another $1,200 to
be crammed in van with a dozen other immigrants and driven 1,600
miles, from a safe house in Arizona to Mississippi.
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Laptop Computers The passengers were not fed - Ojeda recalls his mouth watering
when he smelled tacos the driver ate - and were discharged near the
Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport, where Ojeda
sleepwalked though his first day clearing hurricane-strewn
junk.
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Laptop Computer The job was supposed to pay $7 an hour. But six weeks later,
Ojeda still hasn't been paid the $600-plus he said he is owed for
eight days of dawn-to-dusk labor.
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Desktop Computer Karen Tovar, the subcontractor on the job, acknowledged she
hasn't been able to pay dozens of workers a total of about
$130,000. She insisted she was not at fault, blaming the way
payments can be stalled along a long chain of subcontractors often
led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
At one point, Tovar had 83 workers cleaning the Navy base under a
broader, $12 million contract held by KBR, a firm owned by Vice
President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton.
Notebooks After several weeks without pay, many workers grew frustrated
and left.
Lenovo "I've told them, 'When I get paid, you will receive your funds.'
And they say, 'When?'" she said. "I'm very sure it's going to be
shortly."
Hard Drive An Army Corps spokesman said he wasn't aware of any problems
with payments. A KBR spokeswoman wouldn't provide details about the
base cleanup, referring inquiries to the Navy, which referred
questions about subcontractors back to KBR.
Travelstar Tovar said she knew of other subcontractors who disappeared with
their payrolls, and wondered whether her former workers expect she
will abscond to her home in North Carolina.
Gateway "I don't know if they're thinking that I've left and took the
money or that I'm trying to hide the funds, because I wouldn't do
that," said Tovar, 47. "In my type of work, you're working on
trust."
Laptop Parts Armando Ojeda is not trusting. He doesn't think he'll be paid,
though he remains among the platoons of workers bivouacked along
the coast. His goal: to wire his parents in the poor southern state
of Chiapas enough money to offset the cost of his trip, which he
has come to see as a folly he had to indulge before age or
commitments bound him home.
Software "I am stupid for coming," he said, with a smile and shake of the
head. "It was a foolish thing, nothing more."
Hard Drives Nonpayment of immigrant workers is not a new phenomenon - and it
doesn't appear to be as much of an issue in New Orleans. With so
much work to do and not enough laborers to do it, the market there
appears to favor workers, said immigration lawyer David Ware.
Electronics What's remarkable in Mississippi is the apparent scope of the
problem, though it is impossible to quantify.
Canon In this beleaguered state, which doesn't have a labor
department, the issue isn't even on the radar.
Desktop Pc Nonpayment is not specified as a crime under Mississippi law and
the state Department of Employment Security defers wage claims to
the federal
Department of Labor. Workers who claim back wages have two formal
options: Filing a civil suit in state court or a federal complaint.
Mississippi prosecutors haven't received any complaints, according
to special assistant attorney general Peter Cleveland.
Desktop Computers A spokeswoman for the federal Labor Department said she could
not determine whether there have been any post-Katrina claims in
the Gulf region. But there are some in the pipeline: On Friday, a
representative of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance said
the advocacy group had prepared complaints on behalf of more than
150 workers who are owed more than $100,000 by five contractors,
including Tovar's KTS Services.
Think Pad Out in the cleanup-zone, dozens of Hispanic immigrant workers
interviewed by the AP shared a common refrain: "I worked without
being paid."
Repair In Gulfport, several dozen men living in makeshift bunks in a
hangar-like building said they were owed tens of thousands of
dollars.
Data Recovery Like other workers, Alfredo Roblero saw opportunity in the
wreckage, and was recruited from Ft. Pierce, Fla., with promises of
steady work for good wages, expenses paid.
Cisco "They bring you to nothing," said Roblero, 26, who figured he
was due about $500 for five days spent demolishing what was left of
the coastal Casino Magic Biloxi. "They owe you, and you wait for
them."
Keyboard Many of the workers wore the shirts of Dallas-based Restoration
Group. In a subsequent telephone interview, company president James
Rea said the workers were the responsibility of a subcontractor. He
insisted all have been paid and blamed insurance companies for any
delay.
Monitor "We're all standing in line and we take our piece of each dollar
off as we hand it down," he said, "and eventually it gets down to
the end of the line."
Desktop In a slovenly trailer park, men named Francisco and Oscar said
they were owed thousands of dollars for weeks of work. Not long
before, according to local immigrant advocates, more than a dozen
workers were bunking in their trailer, each paying $10 per night
for lodging to a subcontractor who they said then shorted them
thousands of dollars.
Infosys Before that, the men had worked for - and had quit - Karen
Tovar's crew.
Refurbished Laptops Tovar said that the men didn't understand American pay
schedules, specifically the practice of working two weeks before
getting paid for the first.
Wipro "I've been to Mexico and, basically, these people live from week
to week and when they come over here they have a misconception when
the week is held back," said Tovar.
Lap Top Tovar said that she has worked other hurricane cleanups, but
never had trouble being paid by other subcontractors. While she is
now receiving a steady flow of payments, she said it's not enough
to pay off the $130,000 she owes 83 workers for helping clear the
Navy base.
Refurbished Elizabeth Martinez is another subcontractor who has been
embroiled in wage disputes. She has been living among workers in a
small tent city in Ocean Springs.
Memory On Oct. 12, eight men who had been patching roofs asked a
Texas-based immigrant worker advocate who was visiting the camp to
help negotiate their pay.
Intel As is often the case, the situation remains in dispute.
As400 Advocate Anita Grabowski said the men, who came to Mississippi
from Arkansas and have since scattered, worked two weeks and were
due their money.
Averatec Bosses at the Alabama-based subcontractor that hired Martinez,
Hughes Construction Services LLC, said the workers didn't
understand that they weren't yet scheduled to be paid.
Hardware Martinez herself said she didn't hire the workers to lay roof
tarps and that they were trying to extort money they hadn't earned
- an increasingly common scam, she said.
Dual Xeon Martinez said she didn't want to pay until she checked her
records. But the owners of family-run Hughes decided to front
Martinez more than $15,000 to pay the men - $10 an hour, $15 for
overtime.
Storage "We just wanted it to be over with," said Jody Hughes, one of
three Hughes sons working the cleanup. The men were paid and agreed
to find work elsewhere.
Seagate "Hughes was being intimidated," Martinez said. "To me, it's like
paying off damn terrorists."
Computer Sales On a chill late-October evening, Martinez stood near her tent,
engrossed in discussions with three more men who had driven two
hours from New Orleans to complain that she hadn't paid them.
Computer Hardware Martinez told their chief negotiator, Antonio Hernandez, that
she had paid the fourth member of their roof-tarp crew, a man named
Ruben who now was in Texas.
Printers Soon summoned by cell phone, Ruben denied receiving any money.
But one of Hernandez's companions acknowledged that he had seen
Martinez pay Ruben something, and Martinez produced handwritten
records that persuaded the men she had advanced Ruben $700 cash,
which the men hadn't seen.
Technology The men piled back into their beat-up brown van for the return
ride to New Orleans with boxes of food and $150 in cash Martinez
gave them "not because I owe you ... as a gift."
Mainframe Just as they pulled out, Martinez flagged down four Guatemalan
workers who walked into the encampment. She said a true scam artist
had ripped off these unfortunates.
Samsung One by one, they explained that they had cleaned a school for
144 hours at a promised $8 an hour. Then one of their bosses
dropped them on the side of the road, without food. Eventually, a
church bus picked them up.
Computer Repair Any idea, they asked, of how to get paid?
Used Computers Contributing to this report were Associated Press researcher
Julie Reed in New York and Associated Press reporters Tom Hays in
New Orleans and Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss.
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