Labor Force in New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina

As work got underway, some employers on the Gulf Coast reportedly failed to pay their workers or provide them with adequate safety equipment and housing. Other workers alleged employers paid them so poorly that they could not afford to buy food. Reports of abuse — coupled with the easing of labor regulations, virtually no monitoring of construction sites, and the city’s lack of adequate housing and healthcare — suggested that unscrupulous contractors were exploiting their workers.

Against this background, the Human Rights Center and Berkeley Law’s International Human Rights Law Clinic collaborated with the Payson Center for International Development (no longer active) at Tulane University to conduct a study of the situation of construction workers in New Orleans. The study, which took place in March 2006, surveyed both documented and undocumented workers. Documented workers included U.S. citizens, permanent residents, work visa holders, and workers with temporary immigration status, while undocumented workers included people with origins in Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and several other countries.