At a press conference in Mississippi yesterday the AFL-CIO announced a major new initiative to help rebuild New Orleans and called for President Bush to rescind his plan to pay workers less than prevailing wages for the work. Louis Riene of the Mississippi AFL-CIO:

[Riene] "I think it's unconscionable...and now we're gonna tell those people that their work is less valuable than it was before the storm hit? It's like making them victims twice."

The AFL-CIO noted the significant role played by poverty in the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and said poverty-reduction should be a priority in the rebuliding effort:

[Riene] "We oughta be addressing now how we address poverty as we rebuild that city by providing jobs with livable wages, and we think that those people who were touched most by the disasters, should be the first people to return to work and they oughta be given preference. We need those people back to work. Building the community is about building back the citzens as well as it is building the buildings."