Day 24, Way 24Since more people are noticing the project I have started to get a lot of suggestions about what to do next. I will probably act on some and not on others, so I just want to say: if I don't get to your favorite topic or charity, there's nothing stopping you from starting your own Katrina remembrance project. Lent is going to end a lot sooner than the need will. If you think this kind of work is worth doing, then by all means pick up the torch and run with it.
Anyway, one of the questions I've been asked by a number of different people is whether anyone is doing anything about getting replacement tools to workers who lost their equipment during Katrina. Through the
AFL-CIO's Hurricane Katrina news center, I did that in September 2005, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers started up the
Tools for the Tradesproject:
"To help these men and women and to give them the means to start rebuilding their lives, the IAM is calling on its members to donate tools that can be distributed to union members who have lost their means to make a living. Hand tools and portable power tools, in new or nearly new condition, can be collected and sent to IAM Headquarters, where they will be packaged and shipped to union here."There are two potential issues here: one is that this page was put up in September, and there's nothing to show that the effort is still ongoing. In fact, the writeup in the IAMAW
newsletter suggests that it was a one-time drive and that the donations have already been distributed. It wouldn't hurt, I suppose, to
email the IAMAW and ask if they're still collecting.
The other thing is that like most of these union-organized relief efforts, they're designed specifically to support fellow-union members, so for instance if you donate power tools to the IAMAW, they will only get to other members of the IAMAW. Which, well, that's how labor law in this country forces us to define 'solidarity forever,' since the Taft-Hartley Act has disabled a lot of the mechanisms of syndicalism, and the NLRB has made it easy for employers to permanently replace strikers anyway, which...all right, nobody asked me to get all
Cradle Will Rock on anyone's ass.
Just to show you I'm fair and balanced: If you're management, you may find your heart warmed by the example of the
Finishing Contractors Association, which is not actually a trades union but an organization representing the contractors who then go out and hire the guys at the
International Union of Painters and Allied Trades:
"A major reason for FCA’s existence is to make sure that the business relationship between the FCA member contractor and the IUPAT remains a competitive advantage for the contractor. Effective labor-management relations are the best way to achieve that objective."So, well, it's all about how you define "effective," isn't it...but it appears that the FCA and the IUPAT are--literally--on the same page when it comes to
Katrina relief. (Union on the left, employers on the right, of course.) The
Finishing Industry Disaster Relief Fund -E (why the E? I have no idea) had raised $360,000 by January and has apparently focused most of its efforts on getting decent temporary housing for contractors and workers--partly because they need it, but of course partly because there's a lot of work for contractors down on the Gulf Coast right now and the FCA can't get a piece of that action until the IUPAT folks have somewhere to live down there. The FCA originally tried working with FEMA, but in what is becoming something of a leitmotif for these websites I spend so many hours perusing, they complain that the FEMA response was, well, inadequate:
"Temporary housing for the displaced employers and workers was identified as our first priority, working closely with FEMA to obtain temporary housing trailers. FEMA, however, was slow in setting up their trailer pipeline and in organizing their management structure. We also looked into leasing apartments, renting rooms in private homes, and/or finding hotel/motel rooms. And while the FIDRF-E’s planning efforts progressed, our affiliate associations and individual contractors generously made contributions totaling over $360,000. After continuously looking for scarce temporary accommodations, a local Days Inn offered us 25 rooms which we immediately leased for three months with an option to renew, thereby committing about 40% of our relief fund. Working closely with the IUPAT District Council leaders and local contractors, over 50 workers from five union contractors in the painting and glazing trades now occupy the Days Inn. These rooms—mostly two men to a room, with some having three—are being used to house mainly the displaced workers, whose earlier temporary housing arrangements had been terminated, along with some of the additional workforce so badly needed to supplement the massive rebuilding efforts. Other unions have expressed their surprise when told that FCA’s contractors have provided such monetary assistance, and the local contractors have commented that our timely temporary housing support enabled them to overcome significant manpower hurdles. One such hurdle, their heavy workload, is staggering: contractor crews are currently working 6/10s with talk of going to 7/10s, and IUPAT DC 80’s labor leaders are trying hard to quickly organize and train additional manpower." I love "expressed their surprise." I especially love how it doesn't tell you whether it was good surprise or bad surprise.
The FCA page links to an article on their relief fund in the
Chronicle of Philanthropy which discusses the phenomenon of disaster-specific charities. There is apparently a debate within the philanthropy sector over whether these new charitable groups are the most efficient way to meet the need, or whether people should keep funneling their money into the Red Cross et al. Also, I did not know this, but after September 11, the IRS decided to speed up the process of applying for tax-exempt status, and it's done the same after Katrina. (It's interesting to know that they can speed up when they want to.) However, the professional philanthropists don't necessarily see this as helpful:
"It doesn't make sense to expedite an application for exemption in the wake of situations like hurricanes or the World Trade Center," said Marc Owens, a Washington lawyer who headed the IRS division that oversees nonprofit organizations from 1990 to 2000. "These organizations that pop up run a high risk of waste, inefficiency, and outright fraud. Even when you have individuals with the best intent, they are not experienced at raising and distributing money. It's truly foolish to expedite these applications, but it enables the IRS to say it's doing something. It makes everybody feel good."
New charities often duplicate the work of existing nonprofit organizations, said Jack Siegel, a Chicago lawyer who advises charities. "There's also the cost of setting up a new organization, both in terms of money and time," he said. "You have to prepare and file a tax return. You're supposed to be reporting to the state monitoring agency, and paying fees. You have to pay for space. You're also taking up IRS resources."
Mr. Siegel added that the expedited process is unfair to other worthy new groups. "Let's say you were in Seattle, and the whole community had gotten together and decided to do something for the homeless. You had community leaders behind it, and the local government, and you filed your IRS Form 1023 seeking tax-exempt status. Why should you suddenly have to take a back seat to Katrina? Not to sound heartless, but why are the homeless people from Hurricane Katrina more important than the homeless in Seattle?"Uh...there's more of them?
Seriously, that last question is one that inevitably comes up around an effort like this, and it doesn't have a simple answer. The obvious one is that a major natural disaster creates a sudden, acute need that did not exist before, and draws into its path people who otherwise would not become homeless, destitute, etc. It attracts more attention because it appears to represent an extraordinary event beyond the realm of the ordinary evils we deal with every day in the world, which paradoxically gives people hope that they might be able to have an impact on it. The poor, as they say, we will always have with us; but whole cities don't get wiped out every day. (Not yet, anyway. Come back after another 10 years of the US pretending not to notice climate change and we'll see what happens.)
For me, the Katrina thing is different. Yes, it's an extraordinary event and as such draws media attention which creates an affective investment in the suffering it produces that the homeless people you walk past every day on your way to work are unfortunately unable to inspire. But what Katrina has done is demonstrate to all of us who try to forget about them why those ordinary evils must be fought, no matter how boring they are. And for me the fundamental evil, the one I want most to see finally brought down, is our government's brutal contempt for the poor. Those people at the Superdome had been left behind long before FEMA stood them up. And frankly, as you see more and more outrage being mobilized against the Bush regime by people who used to think it was not so bad, it's because it is becoming crystal clear that if something is not done, everyone outside Bush and Cheney's circle of friends and donors will eventually become "the poor." We have
all been left behind. The homeless in Seattle, the homeless in Chicago, the homeless on the Gulf Coat, and those of us who are fortunate enough to still have homes for the time being--we are all brothers and sisters in our experience of having been lied to, cheated, and robbed by this government, and we could all very soon wind up floundering together in the next big flood.
Solidarity forever,
The Plaid Adder
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