New Orleans Offers New Job Hope
By Mike Snyder, Houston Chronicle
Jul. 26–A busload of Hurricane Katrina evacuees departed Houston before dawn Tuesday to check out a new training center in New Orleans that they hope would improve their chances of finding good jobs.
About 50 Houston evacuees arrived just in time to join about 70 people from New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., for the opening of the Worker Resource Center, developed by a coalition of labor unions to train storm victims for jobs in health care and the construction industry.
Many evacuees have struggled to find jobs since they resettled in Houston. A survey in March showed that most of those who received city housing vouchers were employed before the hurricane but generally in low-wage jobs.
“We’re going to need some type of formal training” for better-paying jobs, said Houston evacuee Debra Campbell, who made the trip to New Orleans on Tuesday and was encouraged by what she saw.
Campbell, who worked for an insurance company until 1999, when she quit to devote all her time to caring for her autistic son, said the circumstances facing New Orleans residents now require higher income. “What we had before isn’t going to cut it.”
Leaders of Change to Win, the labor group that developed the Worker Resource Center, said they want to prepare hurricane victims for jobs that pay a living wage with benefits and opportunities for advancement.
“I think it would be a terrible outcome if we rebuilt New Orleans with minimum-wage jobs,” said Tom Woodruff, the executive director of the Service Employees International Union.
Woodruff said many good jobs will be available in construction and health care as federal money flows in to rebuild New Orleans and hospitals and clinics start to reopen.
He acknowledged, however, that Change to Win hasn’t determined where to house workers who return to New Orleans, which faces a severe housing shortage. Rents rose sharply after Katrina destroyed many of the city’s apartments.
Campbell said she is determined to return to New Orleans but is uncertain where she will live. “We’ve looked around for rental places, but they’re talking $1,200 (per month),” she said.
Change to Win representatives said the job training will focus on local residents for the first month or two, providing more time to develop temporary housing for workers recruited from Houston or elsewhere.
Union leaders said workers who complete the training will be eligible to join a union-sponsored organization that will provide benefits such as discounted health care and financial services.
The job training will be led by the 700,000-member Laborers International Union of North America, which represents construction workers, and the 1.8 million-member SEIU, representing health care employees.
On Tuesday, 20 trainees attended a 10-hour workplace safety course for construction workers.
mike.snyder@chron.com
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Copyright (c) 2006, Houston Chronicle
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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