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I'm Maria Inojosa.
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I'm Maria ino Jossa Noaan.
When powerful hurricanes, wildfires, or floods destroyed communities across the United States, scores of workers emerge from around the country ready to clear and rebuild. And dear listener, you might not know this, but it is in fact Latino immigrants who are the ones more than likely to perform the hardest cleaning tasks after natural disasters. In the process, though, they're also unknowingly exposed to harmful toxins, toxins that can make them sick years after finishing the job. La camo,
that's Mariano, an undocumented immigrant from Ponduras. He said his dry throat hurts and he's always coughing sometimes to the point of triggering an asthma attack. Mariano is fifty years old. We're not going to reveal his last name in order to protect his identity. He was repeatedly exposed to mold when he cleared debris from nine her Kanes in Louisiana and Florida, and dear listener, mold can contribute to pulmonary
disease and also to asthma. Still, Mariano says the labor contractors hiring him over the years did not provide something as basic as a proper mask or any other kind of protection or training that could have minimized exposure. Mariano was exposed to three of the most common toxins in
post disaster work sites, asbestos, lead, and mold. While lead and asbestos are regulated by the federal government, those standards are generally not enforced in the wake of a disaster, and mold, which is ubiquitous after hurricanes, is not regulated at all. Mariano said his only resource was to put himself in God's hands, and while the industry Mariano joined almost twenty years ago keeps expanding, no one is tracking how exposure from disaster to disaster impacts workers' health, at
least not until now. From Futuro Media and PRX It's Latino USA. I'm Maria no Josa Today Toxic Labor, a first of its kind investigation into how prolonged exposure to toxins affects the health of workers who rebuild American cities after natural disasters. This is a special episode by our own Futuro Investigates, in collaboration with the Center for Public
Integrity and Columbia Journalism Investigations. We'll tell you why immigrant workers man reconstruction sites are left to fend for themselves while their labor fuels a booming and loosely regulated industry that neglects them. We're going to start today in New Orleans, home base to many restoration workers since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in two thousand and five. Our investigation was kicked off over a year ago by a team of
fellows from Columbia Journalism Investigations. They were focusing on climate change. Then investigative reporter marines A. Mulio with the Center for Public Integrity joined the effort, and the entire team traveled to Fort Myers, Florida and New Orleans last year. Now, Marinez is with me in the studio to talk about
this reporting. Ola Marinez, Hi, Maria. So your team traveled to these places that have been pretty much devastated by hurricanes, and what you find is, in many ways, Frank, what I saw myself almost twenty years ago when I went to New Orleans as a television correspondent for PBS after Hurricane Katrina.
My house is underwater.
I have me and my husband, a three year old and a newborn.
So we're done week.
I know where to go nowhere.
I go up homelows.
That's all I had.
That's all I had.
So we wanted to see if and how workers doing the hardest job cleaning up after major destruction have access to training and protective equipment that could limit their exposure to toxins that can make them sick. Maria, these workers are still neglected. We learned that when we went to New Orleans.
Hey day, we're not.
It's a sunny spring day in March, and a few men are playing dice in the parking lot of a home improvement store. It's only eleven am, but the men still here. They would likely not find work today. That's because employers usually pick up laborers by sunrise for a full day's work. I'm here with a colleague to interview workers and document talks and exposure over time. We want to ask them about their access to training and protective equipment,
because those safety measures can lessen their risk. Already, not far from the men playing dice, I meet Roberto, a forty seven year old immigrant from Honduras. He is piercing black eyes hidden behind a baseball cap. His muscles are outlined in the long sleeved shirt he's wearing on this hot day to protect himself from the sun. Unlike other workers around him, hesitant to talk with me, Roberto proudly tells me how he helped rebuild New Orleans after Katrina
in two thousand and five. He was exposed to asbestos multiple times while demolishing structures.
Meet personas Blancas, La Guia Americana, Guillavess, B Cortino, and Slippery and Amantras.
While cleaning up after Katrina, Roberto says his boss ordered him to bag debris filled with asbestos without protection. He told me he suspected it was dangerous when he saw American workers and Katrina volunteers wearing white hazmat suits and masks to do the same job as an undocumented immigrant. He said he felt he couldn't demand protective equipment to limit talks and exposure. Dozens of workers told me the same.
After major disasters. Newly arrived immigrants like Roberto are lured by the promise of a job that pays over a minimum wage and also offers perks like overtime pay and transportation. And because of climate change, this industry is actually booming. It moves one hundred and fifty billion dollars every single year.
Just in the last four years, there have been at.
Least eighty one major storms, floods, and wildfires across the US. These have cost nearly one thousand deaths and left at least five hundred billion dollars in damages.
While the forecasters say that Hurricane Laura, which has made land in Texas and Louisiana from the Gulf of Mexico, could cause a storm.
Search Hurricane Ida making landfall in south east Louisiana as a powerful Category four st war treacherous night ahead for Florida as darkness begins to fall and Hurricane Ian continues its catastrophic rampage.
While restoration efforts from these disasters employ more and more Latino immigrants to clean and rebuild. There is no federal or state data available that tracks how many of these workers get sick, and there's no government aid agency or advocacy organization that has studied how prolonged exposure to toxins from cleaning disaster after disaster could impact a worker's health.
So the team from Columbia Journalism Investigations and I spent months reporting on this unprotected workforce, interviewing dozens of workers and digging through hundreds of pages of documents. Since there was no data, we had to build our own to understand the scope of the problem. We methodically documented workers' experiences mariat. Their stories were difficult to hear.
And you know, Tokayah, I know exactly what you mean, because back in two thousand and five, when Katrina happened, I reported on the huge immigrant labor force that was suddenly brought into New Orleans, and it was a similar story of these workers not being protected. I mean, I remember vividly seeing scores of Latino men cleaning up the debris, and not once in all of the time that I was reporting in New Orleans. Did I see any of them wearing any kind of protective gear? And I specifically
remember talking to one worker from Nicaragua. He took me to where he was staying at the end of a very long work day, and he showed me this really beat up bible where he kept his most prized possession, which were the photos of his kids. And I remember him looking at this and crying and describing how looking at these pictures allowed him to get through what he described as hell on earth.
Hm.
He sounds like Marino, the worker we heard at the top of the show. When I asked him if he received training or had access to protective equipment that could have helped minimize exposure to dangerous toxins, he said a prayer was his only protection. The reality, Maria, is that these workers are just as vulnerable now as they were almost twenty years ago when you first reported on the issue.
Which is not the way it's supposed to go.
When journalists, investigative journalists uncover a problem, a labor abuse, it's supposed to get better. So the fact that after twenty years we're basically telling the same story is incredibly problematic. And when we come back we're going to hear from Mariano again. He's going to tell us how cleaning hurricane after hurricane has taken a toll.
On his body.
Stay with us, Yes, Hey, we're back, dear listener, and we're taking a closer look at how workers' health is impacted from tocsin exposure during natural disaster cleanup.
In the comfort of his home.
Now, Mariano, the immigrant that we heard from earlier, shared in detail his experiences working in this cleanup industry for almost twenty years. And you were there with him, Marinez.
Yes, Maria. We arrived at Mariano's home on a Thursday evening in March of twenty twenty three. It's a single story house about five miles from downtown New Orleans. Similar structures are squeezed in together, lined along the block, with a small patch of grass by the front door. We walk in through the small living room with a black couch, yellow pillows, and a multicolored lamp. The word home is spelled on the wall. The O is replaced with a green wreath. Offers us something to drink as we sit
around the small kitchen table next to the refrigerator. At just five feet he stands strong. He moves his large hands when he speaks to emphasize something important. He wears his black hair and a tapered bus cut, revealing his car in the back of his head. It's an unwanted souvenir from a fall off a roof while he was working after Hurricane Michael in twenty eighteen. The contractor that
hired him didn't give him a safety harness. When I ask Mariano how many hurricanes his helped clean, he gives me a long list.
Okay in the Matthew in the Harvey, Harvey I I in Florence, Flora.
Mariano invites his older brother Santos to join our conversation Wela. The brothers work together for most of the time. Those checks the long list too. Thendala yea, He's cleared debris from ten hurricanes. Santos is a sixty year old father of six. He's a few inches taller than his brother. Today, he wears a baseball cap that covers his gray hair. He's an avid soccer player with a round belly. The brothers had been living in Dallas when they decided to
seek work after Katrina. They arrived in New Orleans in a greyhound bus with just a backpack and a sleeping bag they used to keep warm while sleeping in a city park. A week after arriving, they were hired and housed at a downtown hotel. There was plenty of work. Hurricane Katrina damaged and estimated one hundred and thirty four thousand and homes in New Orleans alone. Santo still remembers the stench, a rancid mixture of mold and dead bodies. He even made up his own ward in Spanish to describe.
It maloloro apistosidad stinkiness.
The stench forced them to throw away his donated clothes every day. He remembers the unsettling destruction and long hours of grueling work and limited access to food. He said that labor contractors that hired him and his brother did not teach them how to properly protect themselves from repeatedly being exposed to asbestos, lead, and mold again among the most common kinds of toxins found in post disaster sites.
Government research shows that exposure to even small doses of asbestos can cause mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer, and chronic exposure to lead can cause reproductive issues, kidney problems and seizures, while mold can contribute to pulmonary disease and asthma, and so we needed to verify the exposure. We asked Santos and Mariano to share information regarding places they've worked and medical records.
Yeah, Yon.
Plancha. It took me.
Months of calls and voice messages before I could truly understand the dire conditions the brothers faced. One day, Santo sent me a video of an abandoned house in New Orleans he was about to demolish to show me the growing mold.
You don't know.
The video was just under two minutes. I repeatedly paused to process what I was watching. I could see the growing mold all over the walls. It made me concern for the brothers. I remember meeting Santos in person and immediately noticing his breathing problems. He has constant asthma attacks, and he has adopted a nightly ritual of deavin vapor
ub under his nose to help suothe the cough. Twenty minutes into our conversation, when we were talking about access to healthcare, he told me he only has access to a community clinic, staph by volunteers. We were forced to take a break after he started coughing.
Again.
Dear listener, there is no federal or state data to show how many disaster restoration workers get sick every year, but Marinez and her team were able to document for the first time that the brothers symptoms after a prolonged exposure to toxins were not unique, right, Marines.
Yes, and we did that with the help of a unique questionnaire our team created. It was with the guidance from occupational health and safety specialists, environmental researchers, and other academic experts. We wanted to quantify exposure over time and symptoms associated with asbestos, lead.
And moldsinas angos, amiato, estos, ot to.
Mo and peace more fabartament generally.
The more.
That was mariaes in the middle of an interview with workers, asking them whether they've been exposed to toxins, and each of them answering yes and yes. You also heard a female voice there, because there are women who are doing this hard work too. They are not as many as men, but they are definitely part of this growing labor force.
So this is the first time that workers prolonged toxin exposure and associated health symptoms are being documented in this way, Marianez, Let's share with our listeners the findings that you came up with, Maria.
We interviewed one hundred Latino disaster restoration workers in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. We asked them about toxin exposure, access to personal protective equipment, and training, and a let me give you a detailed breakdown, Maria. Seventy two workers reported being exposed to mold, fifty two said they were exposed to asbestos, and forty eight told us they were exposed to lead.
Most workers experience health symptoms toxicologists say can be linked to those toxins, including skin and eye irritations, respiratory problems, headaches, and others developed chronic illnesses like asthma and vision.
Loss Alsium capa identifica toxinus.
So with these numbers, you actually now have some hard data that's documenting this reality that we've been reporting on for decades.
Now, that's right, Maria. In the case of Santos and Mariano, nearly twenty years of chasing work after hurricanes, it's taking a toll on their bodies. The brothers not only have ongoing breathing problems. They also have been hospitalized following work accidents. One such accident left Santos temporarily blind, while another left Mariano in a coma for multiple days after he fell
off a roof in Panama City, Florida. But still it's probably their respiratory issues that indicate the most enduring health effects. When working after Katrina, Santos lived with hundreds of workers housed in rows of triple bunk beds in close proximity. He noticed a striking cough trend. Yeah. Santos recalls workers lining up to shower as early as two am and hearing coffin and unison. He described it as quote an orchestra of roosters and chickens.
No, no, hi, HESSI.
You know Marinez.
Years later, researchers did come up with a different name for it. In fact, they called it katrinakof, referring to bouts of sinociitis and inflamed lungs. And it's all documented in a study of almost eight hundred New Orleans area workers surveyed between two thousand and seven and twenty ten, This by researchers from two lane schools of medicine and public health and tropical medicine.
So, dear listener, you might.
Be saying, isn't there a federal agency responsible for making sure that workers are protected and well? The answer is yes, it's the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or OSHA that is supposed to do just that.
Now.
After Katrina, the costliest storm in US history, OSHA used a new approach for monitoring post disaster work sites.
It was first created as.
An emergency response to the cleanup efforts from the nine to eleven attacks, and it meant suspending enforcement of workplace standards after disasters. Yes, suspending enforcement of workplace standards after disasters, and instead they usually only are now handing out advice on quick ways to fix health and safety hazards solutions. In fact, that might prove insufficient, right.
My dear, But only two years after Katrina, experts from UCLA warned that this approach left Latino workers and I quote unprotected. Their studies showed barriers like language and legal status left workers unable to negotiate workplace safety.
And the study also warned that the negative impact of OSHA's policies on workers' health could be quote duplicated throughout the country unquote, without rigorous over.
And yet after months of digging, our team found that OSHA continues to implement this same post Katrina policy that favors fast recovery over worker safety, ignoring years of federal research on workplace safeguards.
And in an internal OSHA report, the agency argued that just giving advice to employers would in fact address dangerous hazards while avoiding the long bureaucratic process of issuing a formal citation. But the reality is that without enforcing existing labor standards, there are no other ways to pressure contractors to fix those health and safety hazards. So to get a sense of how the policy is implemented on the ground, we spoke with an OSHA employee who has visited hundreds
of post disaster work sites since Katrina. We're gonna call him Brian, and we're protecting his identity because he's not allowed to speak with the media. Brian described a work site in New Orleans where none of the workers had the protective equipment that they needed.
When we talked to them, the owner told us he yelled at us, you're going to screw the recovery. We cannot comply with OSHER because it takes too much time and costs too much money.
That is not Brian's real voice. One of our colleagues at Latin USA has recorded his answers just as he said them to us. Brian told us that he and his colleagues face hostility from contractors. One time, one called a colleague of Brian's quote an ignorant broad Still, there's little that they can do in response. Once, when a contractor refused to provide protective equipment, Brian says, he thought to himself.
Oh my god, if this was an enforcement inspection, every one of the hazards that we're finding would be a wilful violation because the man is saying he's refusing to comply with OSHA. He knows what the regulations are and he's refusing to comply.
Listening to Brian, I had to ask, do you think you're able to do your job regarding a disaster if you don't have that enforcement tool to literally force employers to keep their workers safe.
It's frustrating. Sometimes it's frustrating because we talk to them and we give them information, and when we leave, we're wondering if they're going to comply or they're just going to ignore it.
Maria, what Brian told you echoes what our team found. Nailing down OSHA's approach to monitoring post disaster work sites was difficult, but once we did it, with the help of public records, we were able to analyze how it was implemented on the ground. Powerful Hurricane Ian gave us that opportunity. Ian devastated southwest Florida in September twenty twenty two, and it was the most recent disaster during our reporting.
We reviewed reports and found that Ocean inspectors often spend only about fifteen minutes in each of the hundreds of work sites they visited. While inspectors did flag hazards like roofing without a harness, all they did was handout information material and they did most of the inspections from outside the structures. They rarely went inside to review the work practices.
So they go and hand on information.
And what happens to the companies that received this quote unquote advice or guidance from these Ocean inspectors.
Well, that's a difficult question to answer. The agency has poor record keeping, It doesn't track activities related to its post disaster policy. Or companies violations across disasters, and it is so important, Maria to have those records because it can help spot potential troubled companies.
And at the end of the day, no matter what guidance Oshaw offers, the guidance only works if the employer is deemed responsible for keeping workers safe. So we're going to meet the person who created OSHA's post disaster policy. Our team interviewed John Henshaw, who wrote the guidance during the George W. Bush administration when he was the Department of Labour's assistant secretary.
That's right, Mada. We visited him last March in his Sanobel Island office in Florida. Hi, Maria and I see you.
Good to meet you.
Thanks for our team connected with Hanshaw and his current role as Senebel Island City council member. We spoke just months after Hurricane Ian devastated his community in September twenty twenty two. When Henshaw welcomed us into his office, I noticed the conference room's walls covered in nine to eleven photos and memorabilia. He spoke about the nine to eleven cleanup in detail, as the terrorist attacks set the tone
for a new federal approach post disasters. He enthusiastically shared his praise and respect for first responders.
We were fortunate that we were working together on the same issue. Protect the workers, make sure we don't lose another life, rescue as many people as we can, and recover as quickly as we can, So everybody was on the same page.
Then he offered a different perspective on the workers cleaning and rebuilding his wealthy island.
Oftentimes you have unskilled people, and many of them, and I'm sure we had a good number here recent immigrants who have a different risk tolerance than maybe we have in the United States.
This is a statement that is just hard to hear, to say that just because they're immigrants, they're recent immigrants, they have a different risk tolerance. I think everybody wants to work in safe conditions and be alive at the end of the day, right.
Mighty yat yes. And he also downplayed the skills and needed to clean and rebuild.
Just not a skilled labor. It's really just knocking down drywall and pulling it out and hauling off to the curve. So it's more of a labor kind of laborer's kind of work. As opposed to any kind of skill.
When we asked him about hurricane recovery efforts, this is what he said, I.
Put myself in the employer's shoes, the employers talking to the to the homeowner's Where the pressure is, Ohshad, It should be holding the employer accountable for doing it, doing what they need to do, do it right now. The employer is saying I got to deal with my client and they're putting pressure on me to get it done.
What about putting yourself in the shoes of the workers. I mean, it's frankly shocking to hear the former assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA speaking like this about who matters most workers or employers.
We also reached out to the current OSHA leadership multiple times we shared our findings, but the agency declined to make Assistant Secretary Douglas Parker available for an interview. Instead, they provided a written statement stressing that quote, employers have the responsibility to protect workers from deadly hazards such as mold, asbestos, and lead. Ultimately, though OSHA defenses pol let's.
See a policy that, as we just heard earlier from Brian, our source at OSHA, a policy that employers basically sometimes just ignore, leaving workers like brothers Mariano and Santos again unsafe and unprotected. So, dear listener, as we're unpacking this huge, multi billion dollar disaster recovery industry, you might be wondering about how companies hire workers but avoid having to provide let's say, training and protective equipment. Who's trying to solve
this problem? In fact, and who is profiting? That's coming up after the break, stay with us, not Bayes. Hey, dear listener, welcome back. And before the break, we heard about how OSHA, the government agency tasked with protecting workers, often suspends the enforcement of labor standards after disasters hit. The agency offers employers guidance onhealth and safety hazards, rarely
issuing citations, just offering advice. This ultimately leaves workers unprotected and exposed to harmful toxins that can make them sick. But where do the workers doing this toxic labor come from? That supply chain is more complicated than just employers and workers. In fact, most workers are hired by labor brokers that provide the manpower for companies receiving those lucrative cleaning contracts.
And ultimately letting those companies off the hook because of those brokers, which leaves immigrants like Mariano and Santos unprotected and vulnerable.
That's right, Maria and Santos told me that he kept working even after he felt sick. Within two years of grueling work demolishing moldy structures and being exposed to asbestos and led, he needed an inhaler for the first time in his life.
Yemerguerdo yang is aima reguerdo.
He remembers the year well. It was two thousand and seven, the same year his mother died thousands of miles away in Hondudas. Cleaning after hurricanes became Santo's livelihood in the US, but he was familiar with their destruction long before. It was the wrath of Hurricane Mitch that forced them to migrate to the United States.
In late October nineteen ninety eight, a tropical storm in the Southwest Caribbean suddenly intensified into one of the strongest hurricanes this century. A meteorologists called it Mitch.
Midge destroyed on Nuras in nineteen ninety eight, causing more than five thousand deaths and over four billion dollars in economic losses. It contaminated the Chulutika River, where Santos used to fish for work. Then one of his sons needed surgery a year later. Without a source of income to feed his children and the urgency to pay for health care, he decided to migrate north. He first settled in Texas, then moved to Louisiana. Mariano, his younger brother, joined him
a few years later in two thousand and five. Now, Mariano also suffers from the long term effects from being exposed to toxins.
Muraya nosalez uryan as an inclusive tango, the opianzo catango burke no aventida.
Mariano said he often wakes up in the middle of the night tasting a salty liquid, only to realize his bleeding. He doesn't know if he's coming from his nose or mouth.
I'm imagining that this is a quite lonely experience is for them because these health conditions, I mean, they realized that no one is actually documenting what they're feeling until now.
Yes, and Maria, you should know that there is an overlap with your reporting from almost two decades ago. A third of the workers we interviewed actually worked on Katrina in two thousand and five, and today, while companies are profiting off of disasters, workers are still facing similar challenges. I saw it myself when I was reporting in Florida. It was months after Hurricane Ian made landfall in the state in September of twenty twenty two.
It's hell on earth as Hurricane Ian slams into Florida.
And you know, those images from Hurricane Ian were particularly devastating. The storm's deadly winds ripped so many homes to shreds, lifted entire buildings off the ground, left miles of homes flooded. One hundred and fifty p people were killed during inan and it coused one hundred and twelve billion dollars in damages.
And just like after other natural disasters, workers came looking for jobs. We went to Fort Myers in southwest Florida to see how the industry operates.
Now.
It's just after sunrise and a weekday in March. I'm standing in the parking lot next to a gas station where small groups of day laborers wait for jobs. It's been six months since Hurricane Ian ravaged the city of about eighty six thousand residents in September of twenty twenty two. Now the work is dwindling. When a white pickup truck stops dozens of immigrants crowded. They're wearing dirty jeans, tennis shoes instead of the construction boots needed to avoid injuries,
and they have no other protective equipment. A young man who appears to be in his twenties hangs off the driver's window. He holds a navy blue backpack and stands taller than the men around him competing for the same job. What do you need, boss, he asked the driver. After negotiating the raid, the driver tells the men hovering around only one. The lone worker hops inside. Disappointed, the rest of the sun kissed laborers walk away to wait for
another truck. Most of them are newly arrived and undocumented immigrants from Honduda's Guatemala, Haiti and other countries. Most are afraid to speak with us about talks and exposure.
Used the Epistamosati help, yes.
What was going to be?
Then?
I spoke with a teenager from Watemala of Mike, who's looking for work. He's five three. I only know because he's my height. He was worried about going to work hungry. He described the unique stomach pains brought on by hunger. Only those who have experienced it can recognize it, he said. Then he showed me the apple in his backpack, his only meal for the day. The risk of being exposed to dangerous toxins was not on his radar.
Marinez, you know, I remember hearing about those same hunger pains and the fear of deportation back when I was in New Orleans in two thousand and five after Katrina, And so again, it's just alarming to hear how these same conditions are repeating decades later.
That's true, Maria, But now there are people who are trying to help, even if it's mostly other workers. We saw it on display last March in New Orleans.
The DNA.
Who Knows.
Volunteers from the grassroots organization Familias Unidas and Excion handed out construction masks, COVID tests, and provided information through their community health program known as PROMOALD. The focus is to promote workers' health. The organization also holds workplace safety training. Mario Mendoza founded the organization with his wife, Lidicia Casildo. They both worked in cleanups after Katrina and quickly realized
immigrants needed a support system. They've stepped in to feed and help evacuate undocumented immigrants during natural disasters.
Perro Mics and the.
Mariio is wearing a bright green T shirt promoting a campaign to allow undocumented immigrants to get a driver's license in Louisiana. His short salt and pepper hair is a messy from when he puts his breading glasses on his head. He told me he was tired of waiting for change. He realized he needed to step up and speak up and organize for better working conditions system.
There is the piece, soa Mario said.
The system is not designed to help undocumented workers. He said, quote, they don't care about the workers, They just care about their labor.
So what Mario told you, Maria Nez, speaks to how this industry has shielded companies from accountability and this is how they do it. No special certification is needed to join the disaster restoration business, which attracts traditional construction companies, and since most workers are hired through labor brokers. As we said previously, the companies don't have to worry about worker safety because they weren't the ones who actually hired
the workers, making matters worse. The sector has gone largely under the public's radar.
So to understand this industry, let's focus on one company as an example.
Will you serve Pro.
It's a popular disaster restoration company worth a billion dollars. It lends its name to over two thousand franchises worldwide, and in twenty twenty, the COVID pandemic created a unique opportunity for workers to demand personal protective equipment and better working conditions.
And that was the case of a group of workers who traveled to Michigan after a dam failed from unseasonably heavy rains. Workers filed a lawsuit against serf Pro Industries, the national corporation, the serf Pro franchise in Michigan, and several subcontractors. They alleged that they were denied proper health and safety gear as they toured down water logged buildings
filled with mold. The workers also argued that their employers violated the public Health Executive Order signed at the time by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus. John Filo is with the Detroit based Sugar Law Center. He represents the workers, and he said the system makes it hard to hold those big companies accountable for worker safety.
That company divorcing itself from any sort of responsibility to the workers artificially right by entering into a contract with a subcontractor who's a labor broker, who then in turn entered into another contract with another sub broker, And each step down the line, what you see is the next lowest company has far less capacity to, let's say, and implement health and safety concerns.
Serf Pro Industries, based in Tennessee, argued that it had no legal duty to the workers hired by self contractors. The company went as far as calling the workers quote total strangers in a court filing, and the judge presiding over the case cited with serf Pro saying that it only had jurisdiction over the local franchise.
What the court is saying is that despite them having franchises literally that are serving every county of this state, our clients would have to go to the home county of serf Pro in Tennessee to sue them, in this case, a county where none of them live, where none of them worked, where none of the injuries occurred that has no connection whatsoever the so then it's the hometown of the people who are being sued that's offensive.
Serf Pro declined to answer any specific questions related to the lawsuit, saying that as a franchiser, it quote does not provide contract or subcontract any direct services and thus is not responsible to workers. The franchise and subcontractors denied the allegations. Now, this profitable business model has made disaster restoration companies desirable targets for acquisition, according to a twenty
twenty three report by the Equity Stakeholder Project. The report shows how private equity firms acquired seventy two disaster restoration companies over the previous three and a half years. Doesn't specify how much money is there, but we know it's in the billions. For example, Blackstone, the king of private equity, paid over a billion dollars to acquire serve Pro in twenty nineteen. On the federal level, there are some efforts to help these workers.
People aren't asking the roofer or whoever is rebuilding your home what their immigration status is. They're just very grateful that somebody is helping them to rebuild.
This is Congresswoman Promila Giapaul, a Democrat from Washington State, and last September, Giapaul reintroduced the Climate Resilience Workforce Act, which she first presented in twenty twenty two in the House of Representatives. In a first her proposal would establish a temporary immigrant status for these restoration laborers.
I'm hoping to start with doing field hearings where we invite our colleagues across the aisle to come as well, and to hear from Republicans and Democrats how undocumented immigrants have been building their community back but have little to no protections from the dangers of their jobs, like physical risks, but also employers who stiff them on pay.
The bill has forty three co sponsors so far, but it hasn't moved past committee. It doesn't address OSHA's role in all of this either, And I asked Representative Jayapaul why.
I think once we get the program, we can also make sure in other bills that we're addressing some of the oversight and accountability. But this is really a workforce establishment, you know, a pathway workforce, pathway establishment bill. And if we can get this done, listen, if we can add some of those accountability provisions that would be great.
Now, it is good news to hear that someone in Congress is concerned about the safety of these immigrant laborers. But after listening to Mariano and those talk about the incredible toll that this work has taken on them, it's clear that the issue isn't moving with the urgency that it needs in order to address specific toxin exposure. As an example, in March, the federal government announced a ban on the only type of asbestos still used in the country.
It's known as white asbestos, and it's commonly present in construction material.
But it took more than thirty years to issue this rule, and.
It could take up to twelve more years for all companies to stop using the dangerous carcinogen.
So the problem just continues.
Today. Santos and Mariano still work together on disaster cleanup, but now they wear protective equipment they can afford.
Ja. Yes, yes, Marco Wante.
Santos recently sent me a video proudly showing me him and his brother at a work site wearing masks and gloves they bought themselves to lessen talks and exposure, and Mariano is also working for Resilience Force. It's another workers rights organization advocating for restoration workers, and Mario the worker and activists is still focusing on creating strong mutual aid in his community, a lesson he learned at home back in Ondudas. He remembers sitting under a mango tree while
enjoying the shade and savoring the fruit together. Mario's father told.
Him abe sizu testova para tusijo tusi, who's tutinus cazimbra para futuu lu.
His father told him his great grandfather planted the tree, knowing he wouldn't get to taste the mangos himself, but his family would. The takeaway from Mario is clear, you plant the seats of community and then you wait for the fruits of their labor.
Toxic Labor is a project of Futuro Investigates in collaboration with the Center for Public Integrity and Colombia Journalism Investigations. This investigation was reported by marines A Mulio, Samantha McCabe, Janelle Redca, and Shaque Juang. It was edited by Mcnelie Torres from the Center for Public Integrity and Kristin Lombardi from Colombia Journalism Investigations. This episode was produced by Marine Sa,
Mulio Noor Saudi and Broxa na Guire. It was at A did by Andrea Lobez Crusado, scoring and sound design by Jacob Rossari. It was mixed by Stephanie Lebou and Julia Caruso. Peter Nubitt Smith did fact checking for US legal review by Michael Rothberg. The Public Integrity team also includes Matt de Rienzo, Janine Jones, Ashley Clark, Vanessa Friedman,
and Charlie Dodge. To find out more information about toxic labor and read our web article, visit Futuro investigates dot Org Again, that's Futuro Investigates dot Org.
The Latino USA team also.
Includes Victori Estrada, Renaldo Leanos Junior, Rodi Matt Marquez, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, and Nancy Trujillo. Penilee Ramirez is our co executive producer. Our marketing manager is Res Luna. Our theme music was composed by Zane Rouinos. I'm Maria Ino Josa, your host and co executive producer, and we'll see you on our next episode and.
Joe Latino USA is made possible in part by the Tao Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and W. K. Kellogg Foundation, a partner with communities where children come first.