Posted on 10/14/2005 5:47:47 PM PDT by Libloather
Fired New Orleans city workers get final paychecks
20 minutes ago
Final paychecks were issued to thousands of New Orleans city workers laid off in the wake of ruinous hurricanes, according to city officials. A message posted on the city website provided further details of the layoffs from Mayor Ray Nagin, seen here 6 October(AFP/Getty Images/File)
NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) - Final paychecks were issued to thousands of New Orleans city workers laid off in the wake of ruinous hurricanes, according to city officials.
"In addition, all employees who are part of the layoff are asked to turn in any city property immediately, including cell phones, cars and fuel cards," Mayor Ray Nagin said in a message posted Thursday on the city website.
Aftershocks from hurricanes Katrina and Rita continued to batter New Orleans despite signs the crippled city was limping back to life.
"There is no last minute reprieve," Nagin spokeswoman Tammy Frazier told AFP. "This is the last paycheck they will receive."
While bars, restaurants and other businesses were gradually being reopened in the mostly desolate city, most of the residents were still gone and the once-bustling streets were deserted.
Bar operators in the city's famed French Quarter were threatening on Friday to host a midnight party to protest a 12:01 am to 6:00 am curfew they complained is stifling the traditionally festive neighborhood's revival.
The absence of businesses and residents stripped the city of its tax base, prompting Nagin to lay off some 3,000 "non-essential" city workers, about half of the New Orleans workforce.
Nagin tried in vain to get multi-million dollar loans from banks to keep the city workers on payroll, according to Frazier.
"As we look toward a brighter future for our beloved city, we are faced with difficult decisions," Nagin said in a written release.
"We sought funding from every possible public and private source, but unfortunately, we did not receive enough to meet all our needs."
Police, fire and emergency medical personnel remain on the payrolls, with US federal funds paying the bill for overtime.
Nagin expected the cutbacks will save the city between five million and eight million dollars a month.
The layoffs came as stores, restaurants, cleaning and construction companies throughout the New Orleans area went begging for workers.
Local stores were offering to pay from nine to 12 dollars hourly for the usually minimum-wage jobs such as cashiers and stock clerks. One burger chain reportedly offered "signing bonuses" of 6,000 dollars for counter workers.
Laid off city workers whose homes were ruined have no reason to return to New Orleans, said Jacqueline Edwards, who worked in the New Orleans planning department for 23 years.
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has urged President George W. Bush to modify federal rules to allow federal aid to pay the wages of local government employees in communities whose tax bases have been wiped out by the storms.
She has also asked Bush to give Louisiana businesses priority in hiring and contracting for the reconstruction effort.
Bush has responded by saying the burden of rebuilding should fall to the private sector.
At least 1,260 people were killed by Katrina when it ripped through the southern United States on August 29, including 1,025 in Louisiana, the hardest-hit state.
Ninth ward is a part of NO, it is full of poor people but has these old shotgun houses, actually quite beautiful with original glass doorknobs,etc. It is part of the city. It was the scene of a Jim Jarmusch movie, Below the Law, written for Tom Waits. Tom actually was in the movie and it captured the atmosphere. It has a seedy quality, the kind you see in some big cities. It is gone now, the houses are just ruined, beyond repair I think.
There are enough conservatives and Republicans in Louisiana that they should have jumped all over Nagin, Blanco and Mary Landrieu, but your Republican congressmen and senators put their skirts on and acted like the whimps they are!!! I'm not paying one cent of my taxes because you folks in Louisiana don't get rid of the vermin you elected to run the state and NO!!! You choose to wallow with low life, then live like low life!!! End of story!!!
well, wouldn't you say it is remarkable that a city is mostly destroyed? I mean, govt doesn't shrink but when a city is sort of closed down, what choice is there. There is no money coming in. NO is bankrupt for all practical purposes.
well, I guess you are insulted too.
Where do these people come from?
That's just peachy by me. But.....I can assure you NO will not come back if your present leadership is allowed to stand. Fighting and arguing with me does you zilch!! You need to spend your energy in getting rid of the Democrat vermin that is destroying the great state of Louisiana!!!
Once again, let me remind you - not everyone in this state supports the Democratic party! And yes, I know the real New Orleans. I know it was NOT a pretty place - I lived there for 8 years before moving to the north shore. I would love to go back, if that city is ever reborn clean and safe. That's what I hope for! That's what we all hope for. Now let's have a REAL discussion about how to bring that city back to life...
Your personal attacks and insults do not serve you well. I suggest you lay off.
Democratic vermin did not destroy NO. Nature did.
I have been intrigued lately by comments of people from NO living here. They all say there is no room for poor people, I assume they mean non workers, in the city. The housing is going to be needed by the rebuilders. Apparently talk of the housing projects, Iberville in particular, being useed for housing for workers.
It is interesting, and I am growing more pessimistic that NO can climb out. Jeff parish is okay I do believe as is uptown. But where will the workers be, the ones who sling burgers, mop floors etc. I hear the pay offers are incredible for just working at a burger king.
It seems to me to be an incredible chance to rebuilt a really wonderful city and do it right. I don't know if it will lhappen. But I wish the hurricane people would all go someplace, the traffic here is terrible.
Not in Naurlins
Obviously they were not needed in the first place.
Ray Nagin should have been the first to go.The unfair part is there are people who have lived there all their lives who have worked and supported families lost homes, and now have to lose even more, their jobs.
I spent my wedding night at the old Roosevelt Hotel in NO. And I went to school there for five years. Lived on Canal Street beyond Claiborne and rode the streetcar down canal every day. Then they took the streetcars away from Canal,,I mourned that. I loved those cars.
It is a beguiling city, full of wonderful people and charm and music and food. And also dangerous like many big cities. I think it was more dangerous because it was so beguiling.
Don't pay them any mind cajungirl. People who have not been down there have no concept of what it's really like and how many really fine people there are in that part of the country.
Of course. The city has no money, most things are closed. They had to lay them off. And I think it hasn't even started, the economic impact on the entire state. The state has a hiring freeze as does the Universities. I think it is touch and go if some institutions will make it back. Tulane is in trouble. The medical schools are relocated and trying to stay open on a wing and a prayer. The Dental School is in BR limping along.
I don't ever rejoice when working people lose jobs. Even government workers. There but for the grace of God go I
Why doesn't the governor just ask bush to annex NO as Washington DC south
I'm all for a real discussion to bring your NO back to life. Here's some starters. The city needs to immmediately vitalize three sectors, tourism, the oil industry and shipping. All this social BS will do nothing. NO must become a powerful economic engine and fast. Only proactive, efficient, honest, aggressive business folks can make that happen. The politicians, Republican, Democrat and Black leaders are absolutely useless. Once the economic engine starts, the folks and the jobs will materialize. The city must demographically change. It cannot function effectively as poverty central, which NO Black leadership in concert with the Democrat Party have put in place. The keep 'em chained in the welfare state mantra is not healthy for the folks and the city. Some of these poor folks that have migrated into Texas and other states can't read or write, except at very basic levels. And... they cannot communicate effectively or become effective in the general work force. My point is: A whole "new' approach is necessary, and it will be quite an undertaking. So, when these Louisiana folks lament at my ranting, rest assured, I only do it to bring forward the very difficult task at hand for the citizens of Louisiana and New Orleans. Objectively, Mary Landrieu, Kathleen Blanco, Mayor Nagin, William Jefferson ain't gonna cut the mustard, no way!!!
People who aren't here simply cannot comprehend what is going on. My daughter just visited and she had heard me talking, when I could, about it. She was stunned. Every place we went, people told her their stories. We went to a story hour at the bookstore for her Baby and the lady sitting next to her had lost everything and was staying with relatives here. She cried telling my daughter her story. We went to get our hair cut and the hairdresser told her all about her sister and brother in law and their losses.
We are drowning in sadness, loss and dislocation here. There is more loss than I can absorb. Yesterday my secretary went down to her sisters house in No, it was molded, the roof had collapsed and it was all in ruins. They were there all day and they got back with two rosaries, both had belonged to their grandmothers. She cried telling me about it but said she was so happy, that was all they wanted to get.
My hurricane refuges who stayed here for a month lost everything, wedding albums, furniture, a lifetime of scrimping to get furniture, keepsakes. Their kids are in a new school, they don't even know where their friends are. And entire family just stunned. The husband's business is in ruins, he cannot find his clients, the wife's job gone.
I hear this everyday,,it is beyond horrible.
So I have little patience for the hubris, the hatefulness, the lack of any heart of some people.
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