Public Employee Press

Relief Mission

Local 420 delivers holiday supplies to union members in devastated New Orleans area

Photos and story by
ALFREDO ALVARADO

When a truck laden with relief supplies arrived Dec. 9 at the headquarters of Council 17 in Baton Rouge, AFSCME members in Louisiana learned about the big hearts of their union family in New York City.

“In the spirit of continuing the great legacy of this local, we thought it was extremely important to help our brothers and sisters in need,” said Carmen Charles, president of New York City Municipal Hospital Employees Local 420.

The local’s humanitarian mission began at the Health and Hospitals Corp., where members from 17 hospitals began organizing a drive that collected clothes, diapers, shoes, canned goods and bottled water for flood-stricken members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, DC 37’s national union. Members opened their hearts and generously donated enough supplies to fill a truck with 100 boxes.

In addition to Local 420’s collection, District Council 37, its members and locals contributed more than $50,000 to AFSCME’s relief fund for Katrina victims.

Of AFSCME’s 4,000 members in Louisiana, 529 lost everything — their homes, their possessions and their jobs — amid the flooding and destruction that Hurricane Katrina visited on the Gulf Coast in August.

Local staffers Chris Watson and David Sessoms then drove 1,420 miles in two days to deliver the truck full of supplies to Baton Rouge. Council 17 Executive Director Garland W. Webb was there to meet them.

“We really appreciate the generosity of the members in New York,” said Webb, as he rolled up his sleeves and started unloading boxes. “Our members are scattered around in Lake Charles and Baton Rouge as well as in Texas. We’ll see that they get these supplies within a couple of days.”

Council 17 represents 4,000 members who work as school custodians, correction officers and food service, tollbooth and hospital employees.

As president of the statewide AFSCME council, Webb has participated in several meetings to address the rebuilding of New Orleans. “It’s unfortunate but they’re getting input from everybody except thelabor unions,” he said. The state legislature has also ignored unions and used the disaster as an opportunity to push for further privatization of the public school system by authorizing an increase in the number of charter schools. The city’s first public school toresume functioning after Katrina did not reopen its doors until Nov. 28.

After delivering the supplies to Baton Rouge, Charles and her staff headed to New Orleans to meet Jane Brown, president of Local 3091, for a brief tour of some of the city’s devastated areas. Brown, who lives in nearby Metarie and drives a school bus, evacuated the area the day before the hurricane with her husband.

“It took us six hours to get to Baton Rouge, and we were just on the outskirts,” said Brown of the trip, which usually takes an hour. A New Orleans native, Brown started the tour inthe Lakeview neighborhood in Orleans Parish. Unlikethe poorer Ninth Ward neighborhood, where the raging floodwaters flattened many of the flimsy old shotgun houses into piles of rubble, most of the homes in Lake-view were damaged but still standing. “It’s one thing to see this on television,” said Carmen Charles, as Brown drove past street after street lined with deserted homes. “But it’s entirely different in person. There are simply no words to describe it.”

Despite pleas from Mayor Ray Nagin for people to come back to the city three months after the hurricane that put 80 percent of New Orleans underwater, most homes are still abandoned. Their doors and windows are wide open and cars caked with dirt and grime sit on their lawns next to piles of debris.

On some homes a long brown line marks where the water rose to at least five feet. The force of the storm ripped huge oak trees from the earth and left their branches and massive roots spread across front lawns next to the ever-present “for sale” signs.

“Things have gotten a little better here,” said Brown. “The garbage was piled higher. It smells better now.”

The metropolitan area of New Orleans has lost more than 220,000 jobs, and, according to the American Red Cross, Katrina killed more than 1,000 people and destroyed an estimated 275,000 housing units.

Four months after Katrina, many area residents feel that the Bush administration is moving too slowly with aid and is more concerned with his war in Iraq. “We feel like we are citizens of the United States who are nearly forgotten,” said Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco recently on CNN.

“What we saw in New Orleans we will never forget,” said Carmen Charles after her trip. “We can never forget these union members. And we cannot let them become among the forgotten.”