“Worse than Katrina,” La. labor leaders warn oil spill worse than media says

[Omaha Steve]

http://peoplesworld.org/worse-than-katrina-la-leaders-warn-oil-spill-worse-than-media-says/

by: John Wojcik May 12 2010


Photo: Chris Hammond, left, secretary treasurer of ILA Local 3000 and David Magee, right, vice president, were first responders in rebuilding the docks after Hurricane Katrina. (Blake Deppe/PW)


NEW ORLEANS - Labor leaders here say the oil spill will be worse for workers in this region than Hurricane Katrina was almost five years ago and that the major media, both locally and nationally, are actually downplaying its significance.

"First they said it was a thousand barrels a day, then 5,000, now 200,000 and the oil is getting closer every day," said Robert "Tiger" Hammond, president of the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO and leader of the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers). "And once it gets into the marshland it will become a bigger catastrophe than Katrina." "Tiger," as he is known in the labor movement and on job sites all over this city, said he fully expects workers here to be hit with a "double whammy" on top of Katrina because, "even if they succeed in building a side by side well that would mean at least 75 to 90 days more of oil gushing into the Gulf. That brings us to hurricane season ad very possibly oil washing up all over this region."

"Tiger," in an interview yesterday with the World, said, "I'm hearing already about people with strange rashes and there are whole stretches near the shores and elsewhere where you can already smell the oil. Fish, animals and sea gulls are dying and there is not enough publicity about it. It's a matter of the people's health and of their lives. And then, if the oil reaches those marshes more than 100,000 people will be almost immediately out of work - this, on top of Katrina and on top of the economic depression already going on is a lot for workers to have to handle."

David Magee, vice president of the dock workers' union (ILA, Local 3000), said that environmentalists and others the union has consulted warn that all major commerce here is in imminent danger. "We have a heads up that this spill will affect our industry adversely in the next two or three weeks. We have spoken to the membership and we are all trying to do our best to be prepared."

Union workers are already a key to the effort to minimize environmental damage and keep ships flowing through the mouth of the Mississippi River which empties into the Gulf of Mexico. "There are cleaning stations where our members are already cleaning the oil off the hulls of ships before they enter and pollute the river," Magee explained.

FULL story at link.

[troubledamerican]

1. What oil spill? I don't see any oil

* quote from Brit Hume.