Here are some photos documenting the struggle of the guest workers (see Feb. 25 post).

Some excerpts from an article in yesterday's NY Times:

"Two human rights experts for the United Nations on Thursday criticized a federal plan to raze public housing projects in New Orleans, saying it will force the predominantly black residents into homelessness...

Monique Harden, co-director of the public interest law firm Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, said the U.N. experts' statement 'is vindication of what public housing advocates have been saying from day one.'

'Recovery must mean the end of displacement for the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast,' said Harden, who returned to New Orleans last week. 'What we have instead is recovery that demolishes affordable housing.'"

Note from Tim: Ted Quant is a long-time MCC partner and ally in New Orleans.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Dear Friends,

We are writing to ask you to contribute to a strike fund for thirty Mexican “guest workers” who are courageously organizing against the slave-like conditions in the strawberry fields of Amite, Louisiana. Their boss has seized their passports, is paying them sometimes as little as $2 an hour, and has threatened them with deportation if they stretch or use the bathroom.

On Valentine's Day, workers walked off the fields to reclaim their dignity. In solidarity, a delegation of African Americans attempted to conduct a citizen's arrest of their boss, Charles “Bimbo” Relan, because he is violating the federal laws that define slavery, peonage, human trafficking, and servitude in the United States. We read him his rights, and told him he was violating the laws our ancestors fought for. Bimbo struck back: he was forced to return the passports but fired the workers and illegally evicted them. The workers are continuing their fight. And they need our support.

The workers are members of the Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity, a Gulf-Coast wide organization led by guest workers who have arrived to work in horrific conditions after Hurricane Katrina.

Read more! »