Study: Avondale Closing Would Devastate New Orleans Housing Market
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The closing of the Avondale Shipyard would have devastating consequences on the housing market across New Orleans and jeopardize that area’s recovery from hurricanes and floods, according to a new study released today.
A survey of realtors in the New Orleans area for the study found that 90 percent believe the proposed closure of Avondale Shipyard will depress housing values by more than 20 percent in the communities close to the shipyard. One-quarter of the real estate professionals surveyed in the study also said values could decline by more than 20 percent for communities throughout the entire New Orleans region.
U.S. Infrastructure Crumbling, Nation Falling Behind Developing Countries
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When it comes to maintaining and improving its roads, bridges and other transportation facilities, the United States is falling behind even developing nations and Congress is showing no will to address the crisis, according to a report released this week by the Urban Land Institute. Further:
Despite the nation’s unemployment woes, the vast job-creation potential of infrastructure projects is being sidetracked by concerns about government spending appetites and potential cost overruns.
In contrast with its global competition, the report notes, after more than 30 years of conspicuously underfunding infrastructure,
the United States is lurching along a problematic course—potentially losing additional ground.
So far, Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans levee breach have not been a big enough wakeup call; neither was the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse, according to Infrastructure 2011: A Strategic Priority. Meanwhile, China is moving closer to completing the world’s largest high-speed train network, a 10,000-mile honeycomb linking major cities across an expanse similar in size to the United States. But the high-speed train is only a small part of a Read the rest of this entry »
Workers Fighting to Save 5,000 Jobs at Avondale Shipyard
The residents of New Orleans rallied to survive Hurricanes Katrina and Rita five years ago. They are slowly recovering from the largest oil spill in U.S. history. But now they are coming together to fight a disaster that would cause more economic harm than the hurricanes and the BP spill combined.
One of the largest, best-paying employers in the Crescent City, Avondale Shipyard with 5,000 union employees, is shutting down in 2013. Northrop Grumman, which owns the Avondale yard and the Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., is shifting the current work from Avondale to Ingalls. The U.S. Navy, Avondale’s biggest customer, has said it intends to re-bid the last two ships in the current series of ships to open competition. If it loses that work, the Ingalls yard is at risk of the same fate as Avondale in 2013.
But the union movement in New Orleans is not about to let the yard close without a fight. Union leaders are trying to find a buyer for the shipyards and are enlisting the support of elected officials and the Navy to save the yard and the jobs. They have teamed up with a bipartisan group of elected officials in Louisiana to urge the federal government to intervene and help the state keep the yard open. (See video above).
Saints Players Try to Block Avondale Closure
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On the football field they are the Super Bowl champions, but earlier this week, the New Orleans Saints showed they are workers’ champions, too.
At the NFL Players Live community event in the Crescent City, the NFL players joined with the Teamsters, Feed the Children and School of the Legends, the NFL’s online football social community, to distribute food to local families in need.
As part of the program, many of the players wore “Save Avondale Shipyard” T-shirts to show their support for the workers at Avondale shipyard, which is set to close in 2013, putting nearly 5,000 people out of jobs.
Some 40 Avondale workers also showed up to help the players distribute food.
Five Years After Katrina: Frustration and Determination
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Unemployment in New Orleans is below the national average, but the poverty level is twice the national rate. The reasons behind that stark contrast tell the real story of what is going on five years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Crescent City.
There’s lots of work that needs to be done in New Orleans. The problem is that nobody’s making a living off the work but the “chiefs and the thieves,” says Robert “Tiger” Hammond, president of the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO.
Even though the federal government just announced a $1.8 billion school construction grant to the city, Hammond says workers will be hard pressed to get good-paying jobs out of the grant. The money is coming to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and doesn’t include Davis-Bacon requirements that workers be paid the prevailing local wage. What’s happening, says Hammond, is that construction workers are being deliberately misclassified as independent contractors so employers can pay them less than if they had a union contract. He adds:
It was hard enough to get a union job before Katrina. Now it’s even harder.
Katrina Four Years Later: Iraq Being Rebuilt Faster
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Four years after Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,800 people and left thousands homeless along the Gulf Coast, many residents, especially those displaced in New Orleans, still cannot come home, because there are no homes to come back to.
From the beginning, the union movement has sought to aid in rebuilding the communities, with the AFL-CIO’s Gulf Coast Revitalization Program early on committing to spending $1 billion to produce new housing, fund economic development projects and create thousands of new jobs. Already more than 400 workers have been trained to fill those jobs.
But outreach efforts continue to be stymied. Robert “Tiger” Hammond, president of the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO, tells Press Associates that local and state officials keep putting up “roadblock after roadblock after roadblock” to building housing for displaced residents.
Interfaith Worker Justice: We Can Change the Nation
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The nation’s economic crisis presents an opportunity for those who believe in justice to create long-lasting, fundamental changes, says Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ).
In her keynote address last night before hundreds of participants at IWJ’s 2009 Leadership Summit in New Orleans, Bobo used the biblical story of Jonah as an illustration of the difficulties coalitions of faith-based groups and unions face in trying to ensure that workers are paid a decent wage and treated fairly. Just as Jonah was called to help save the sinful city of Ninevah, we are called, Bobo says, to help save our nation.
The nation’s economy is in turmoil. No one believes Big Business has our best interest at heart. No one thinks trickle-down can work. No one will be fooled into putting Social Security into the stock market. No one trusts the bankers. Oh yes, it is a new day. Ninevah will never be the same.
As a nation, we are going through a period of mourning, grieving. It is an economic moment like none other in my lifetime. We have the opportunity to change Ninevah, to save Ninevah–and frankly, just in the nick of time.
