Mayor announces flood of layoffs

Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans announced at an Oct. 4 press conference that 3,000 city workers will permanently lose their jobs as part of the continuing economic fallout from the Hurricane Katrina disaster. This amounts to about half the city’s workforce. These workers will receive their last paychecks between Oct. 14 and Oct. 21.

Nagin stated that “no revenue stream” was the main cause for the massive firings, which will not include firefighters, police, sew age and water workers or emergency medical personnel. The usual $13 million in monthly sales tax revenues for the city has been non-existent since the hurricane hit New Orleans on Aug. 31.

Nagin also said that these layoffs could be just the beginning of others to come, and that no one should be surprised if he announces another round of layoffs within the next few months. The layoffs will most assuredly lead to the loss of even more homes on top of the ones destroyed by the hurricane, along with other forms of deepening suffering.

Nagin stated that he could not get any assistance from the state or federal governments in the form of loans to help pay these workers, and that $50 million the city has sought in credit from private lenders remains “sketchy.”

Where are the billions of dollars that Bush and Congress promised—just last month—would go to help rebuild New Orleans and assist the Katrina survivors? Why are huge sums going to Halliburton and other companies but not to New Orleans?

Why isn’t the federal government using every resource at its disposal to bring relief to this beleaguered city and its residents—the way it did in the past when it bailed out the executives and stockholders of the Chrysler Corporation?

Why is the cost of the economic devastation caused by this hurricane being put on the backs of the workers and the poor, who are overwhelmingly African-American?

It has become more and more apparent that the capitalist class, both locally and nationally, along with the Louisiana governor and the White House, are exploiting this situation to attempt to change the economic and social landscape of New Orleans to meet the demands of wealthy whites. This means that African-American, Latin@, and other people of color and poor whites will not be welcomed back to New Orleans. In fact, it has also been reported that landlords in New Orleans are doing everything they can to evict tenants who were forced to evacuate to other areas to escape the hurricane.

A march on New Orleans has been called for Dec. 10, Inter na tional Human Rights Day, to once again demand real justice, including the right to return, for the Katrina survivors.