By Doug Cunningham

While the most economically disadvantaged parts of new Orleans are still piled high with trash and are not yet getting adequate rebuilding action, progress is being made in housing workers who are doing the rebuilding. Bert Santos of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades is working to rebuild New Orleans.

[Bert Santos 1] : "With the work at the shipyards down here - Avondale and we also have an industrial contractor with a connection so he's actually got places for them to stay. So a lot of these people that we had nowhere to put 'em, now we're able to put them to work and house them - both the out of towners and the local people down here."

Santos says the labor victory reinstating the Davis Bacon prevailing wage law came in time to help workers because most of the major contracts affected by Davis-bacon haven't been let yet.

[Santoss 2] : " The construction work that's gonna be done hasn't really been let out to bid on a full scale yet, so bein' that our union scale will be reinstituted on those federal jobs we're hopin' it will help us out a little bit."