Workers remain nervous about employment, according to survey
September 8, 2010
Stanley Bergeron Jr.
September 10, 2010
The BP Oil Spill Committee met for the third time last Monday in the Mathews Government Complex, and the same people told the same stories about their exclusion from the Vessels of Opportunity program. Still, they remain left out.
Attendees were allowed to address the three-man committee made up of Lafourche Parish councilmen Daniel Lorraine, Lindel Toups and Joe Fertitta, as well as three representatives from BP.
As was the case in the last meeting, the discussion focused on accusations of impropriety in the selection process and the frustration that comes with each nonworking day.
“The same people from two weeks ago are here tonight, but you hear of people getting hired from out-of-parish, and that’s wrong,” said Lorraine, the committee’s chairman.
Multiple left-out fishermen said they could provide evidence that something was amiss in who was being chosen to go to work.
They charged VoO with taking on sport fishermen with recreational boats and other boats from outside of the parish. This coupled with the testimony led the committee to speculate on corruption in Leeville VoO office.
“I keep seeing the same people and it’s not right,” Lorraine said. “There’s a damn clique in Leeville and it needs to be broken up.”
The fishermen also testified to trying out-of-parish locations for themselves, but they were turned away. The program stipulates that fishermen must work for their own parishes.
“I don’t think Lafourche is going in the right direction, and I don’t know who to pin it on,” Lorraine said. “I’m just lost, and I feel for you people.”
VoO does not accept tax records, and they determine commercial fishermen by a license and trip tickets. Anyone can own a commercial fishing license, although the definition of a commercial fisherman is earning 51 percent or more of income from the vocation.
Shane Pate, a commercial fisherman from Cut Off, wants BP to start reviewing tax records, or at least have someone do it by proxy.
“Why couldn’t they have them go to a CPA to prove it?” he asked.
Not all of the fishermen in attendance have been completely ignored. Pate worked for four days and was paid for 30. Nathan Cheramie, of Golden Meadow, worked 13 days before they laid him off because they claimed he wasn’t a shrimper.
Cheramie said he has shrimped his entire life, excluding 2010, because he was not making any money.
“Why I got stabbed in the back?” he asked. “Why I’m left out? What’s the reason? It really hurts, a knife in the back, and I can’t pull it out. They broke the blade. That’s how I feel.”
The shrimpers let their frustrations be known to the council. One man threatened to enlist a group of the out-of-work boats and block the bayous if out-of-state enrollees were not dismissed.
South Louisiana fishermen want to work instead of collecting checks from home, which is the difference between this region and the rest of the country, Fertitta said. “If it were me, I don’t know. I’d be in jail.”
Contract workers offload soiled sorbent boom, oily debris and trash from a vessel of opportunity at the Grand Isle decontamination station. Boom, response vehicles and vessels are all decontaminated at the facility. COURTESY PHOTO
