The city of New Orleans marked the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with dozens of events across the city. While some spent the day grieving for lost loved ones, others are demanding the return of basic services like schools, hospitals and in some places electricity and running water, and the ability to return. Christian Roselund is in New Orleans.

-

By Christian Roselund

One year later, the city of New Orleans is largely in ruins. Not only are whole neighborhoods empty of the sounds of life, but in many places public services such as hospitals, schools, and even grocery stores have not been restored. Parts of the lower 9th ward are still without electricity and running water, which makes it so that residents cannot receive FEMA trailers. Patricia Jones of the Neighborhood Empowerment Network says this is keeping many from returning.

By Doug Cunningham

New Orleans Worker Resource Center--created by the Laborers union and SEIU--is offering Katrina victims job training an placement in New Orleans. The Laborers will train workers in construction, demolition and mold remediation.

By Christian Roselund

The first post-Katrina election in New Orleans results in a runoff election in May to elect a city government.Incumbent Mayor Ray Nagin finished first yesterday with a comfortable nine-point lead on Mitch Landrieu, but far short of the fifty percent needed to win the race outright. Nagin reacted to his success with
humor.

[Ray Nagin]: "I stand here before you a humble man, someone who never
thought that I would have this kind of support, after some of the
crazy things I've said."

New Orleans Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman won re-election easily,
despite a scandal over his failure to evacuate New Orleans' parish

A new Louisiana law will protect the voting rights of displaced New Orleans residents. Christian Roselund has the story.

By Christian Roselund

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco is expected to sign into law SB 22 and HB 12. The two bills will allow more voters to vote absentee and also set up satellite voting centers in ten parishes. Lawmakers say the intent of these bills is to allow those displaced to continue to vote in local elections where they lived before the storm. In New Orleans alone there three hundred thousand fewer people living in the city than before Katrina. HB 12 had initially been defeated, triggering a walkout by the Louisiana Black Caucus. But an amended version of the bill passed on Wednesday. Gov. Kathleen Blanco told local press this week that she couldn't say the effort to keep the displaced from voting was not racially motivated. Joe Cook, Executive Director of ACLU Louisiana, explains the importance of these measures.

By Jesse Russell

The Bush administration has chosen to reinstate the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage law. The federal law requires companies awarded federal contracts pay the prevailing wage in a region, Bush had suspended the law in the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The administration had been assaulted for the decision by community groups and labor unions. Bill Samuels is legislative director for the AFL-CIO.

[Samuels]: The reaction was overwhelmingly bipartisan, there was republicans in the House as well as just about every democrat in the Congress who strongly opposed the President's move.

By Doug Cunningham

Worker safety for people cleaning up in the aftermath of the hurricanes along the Gulf Coast continues to be a pressing issue for unions and labor's political allies. Senate Labor Committee leaders Ted Kennedy and Michael Enzi, a Republican from Wyoming, are pushing legislation that would strengthen the hand of OSHA to better protect worker health and safety programs. It provides more money for agency inspections and other enforcement actions for the worker safety and health portion of the National Response Plan. The bill is expected to come up on the Senate floor within a few days. It's called the Katrina Worker Safety and Filing Flexibility Act of 2005. It instructs OSHA to collect and store records on the identities of recovery and rebuilding workers. It also provides for close oversight by Congress to make sure these workers are better protected than the workers who responded to the 9/11 attacks.

By Jesse Russell

On Tuesday New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced the layoff of 3,000 city workers. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said the budget constraints facing New orleans were refelected throughout the Gulf Coast states and she asked the federal government for help.

Nagin has asked the WHite House to waive the Stafford Act which prohibits the use of Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to pay regular salaries. The act was temporarily suspended in New York City after the September 11 attacks.

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: