Migrant workers caught in a race to the bottom.

SAKET SONI is an organizer for the New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition, a group of 15 local organizations and institutions that have been fighting for worker rights after Katrina.

What campaign are you working on? We're working to build a base of both immigrant and Black workers who can collectively fight the exploitative public policy that has shaped the post-Katrina landscape and stop this race to the bottom in terms of wages, rights and conditions. In the past few months, we have intervened in motel evictions and responded to worker issues through direct action and advocacy. We're now building local leadership teams that can organize at day labor corners, in motels and hotels, and in communities.

Who are the laborers that have arrived since the storm? Anywhere between 30,000 to 100,000 new migrant workers have arrived in the region after Katrina. They've come from all over the U.S. and from several other countries. In terms of international workers, many have arrived from Peru, Honduras, Brazil and even Thailand.

Many were recruited through the promise of work, fair pay and free housing. One family from Baltimore met a recruiter in a factory. They paid him and packed their car and came. When they got here, the recruiter was nowhere to be found and neither was the job. This family ended up living in their car for weeks.

Then there are survivors of the hurricane--New Orleaneans who are discovering that they are locked out of the work force in their own city. These are mostly Black workers, but also include Asian Americans and Latinos.

Who are the recruiters? Some of them are small recruiters flying solo. Large corporations hire others. We have talked to workers who were recruited out of factories and homeless shelters, also out of other countries. It would be good to have investigative research that traces recruiters to large companies.