9-19-05,8:47am
Sept. 16—Despite President George W. Bush’s assurances to the public in a national broadcast Sept. 15 that “we have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action”—his actions speak otherwise, union leaders say.
In his first act after the storm, Bush issued an executive order taking wage protections away from construction workers who will rebuild the Gulf Coast. The Bush administration also is using the disaster to attack federal standards by lifting many affirmative action rules for reconstruction contracts and suspending regulations limiting the number of hours truckers can drive when transporting fuel.
In addition, Bush has weakened restrictions giving contracting preferences to small and minority-owned businesses and has suspended the Jones Act, which requires transport of petroleum, gasoline and other petroleum products on U.S.-flagged ships while operating in U.S. coastal waters.
Individual Recovery Accounts No Substitute for Full Aid
At the same time, Bush’s proposed “individual recovery accounts,” while providing much-needed cash assistance for hurricane survivors, are no substitute for other kinds of assistance, such as job training and unemployment benefits, says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
What is needed, says Sweeney, is for the president and members of Congress to expand the Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA) program “to provide benefits to all unemployed workers affected by the disaster at levels higher than those available under state unemployment programs.”
Reactionary members of Congress also are seeking to force through legislation limiting Gulf Coast victims right to sue and mandating school vouchers that will drain public education funds into private schools. Meanwhile, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is preparing legislation to suspend or relax environmental rules—even though the Environmental Protection Administration administrator says there is no need for regulatory waivers, according to The Washington Post.
Bush Awards Buddies With No-Bid Contracts
Further, some of the first large-scale Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery contracts awarded by the Bush administration were awarded on a no-bid basis to corporations with strong ties to the administration and the Republican Party, according to news stories in The Wall Street Journal and other media. At the same time, the administration is using the catastrophe to push a reactionary anti-worker agenda, gutting federal regulations that protect worker safety and ensure quality work and living wages.
The no-bid deals include $100 million contracts to the Fluor Corp., a major donor to the GOP, and the Shaw Group, which is a client of Joe M. Allbaugh, President George W. Bush’s campaign manager in 2000 and the former director the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Meanwhile Halliburton Co., subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root Services received a $29.8 million clean-up contract, while Halliburton, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, is doing repair work at three Navy facilities in Mississippi under an existing contract. The company also has been awarded billions of dollars of federal contracts for work in Iraq and that work and the Bush administration’s Iraq procurement policies have been heavily criticized in recent years.
The no-bid contracts “guarantee profits regardless of how much those companies spend or waste,” says AFT President Edward J. McElroy. “This is happening at the same time that the local hires of these firms will, in many cases, not earn a living wage. It is unconscionable that our national government would act to hurt those most in need while delivering a windfall to wealthy contractors. These decisions must be reversed.”
Bush Handling of Federal Contracts ‘Costly Mismanagement’
House Democratic leaders have requested that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigate the hurricane reconstruction deals.
In a letter to the GAO, Democrats wrote: “The history of this administration’s handling of federal contracts is one of persistent and costly mismanagement. Oversight of federal contracts has been turned over to private companies with blatant conflicts of interest. In Iraq, billions have been appropriated for the reconstruction effort, yet oil and electricity production remain below prewar levels.…The contracting strategy adopted by the administration suppressed competition on thousands of reconstruction projects, while favored companies like Halliburton received special treatment and lucrative monopoly contracts.”
During a tour of hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, the Rev. Jesse Jackson slammed the no-bid deals. “We still got families that don’t know if people are dead or missing. While the disconnected and the needy are running from shelter to shelter, the connected and greedy are getting FEMA contracts.…It’s almost like white-collar looting,” he said.
