Clean up "SLACKERS"

I have a friend that lives about 2 blocks from the beach in Florida. He and his brother both applies for "Clean Up Worker" jobs which are paying between $18 and $32 per hour. One of the brothers got a job working with them within one day of turning in his application (last week). The workers meet in an offsite location and load a bus to head to the beach. They typically work 12 hour days or nights, whichever the case may be. Apparently, when the rain moved in last week, the workers were already loaded on to the bus.

For 6 hours, our government paid these guys to sit on this bus and watch movies. Not training videos...just regular movies. And to top it all off, they got paid for 12 hours worth of work. I know this is not much in the grand scheme of the whole disaster, instead, it's just another tidbit of knowledge that shows how utterly rediculous this scenario is.







[edit on 4-7-2010 by 1curious1]

reply to post by 1curious1
Just another example of how bad our government handles disasters! S&F for you!

Well, I know people doing some of the clean-up and they talk about how ridiculous it is.

They are only allowed to work 20 mins each hour and break the remaining 40 mins. (OSHA). Take two one hour breaks as well through the day (beach clean-up)

The persons I know working small skimmers are paid 1500 a day of they own the boat etc. But can not skim in the rain, certain sea heights etc.. Yet they get paid to dock if conditions are just not perfect.

I wouldn't blame the workers, several government bureaucracies, the Coast Guard, Corps of Engineers, environmental groups complaining about removal of sand....etc. have a huge hand in the slowing down of any progress.

Those I know, dropped what they were doing to help...one is a fireman on leave, another a shrimp boat captain, another a retiree, there are more...yet all are are extremely frustrated at the slow to no progress.

mg

How about the numerous boat captains that are paid $1200-$2000 to sit at the docks all day waiting for instruction?

reminds me of the Katrina clean-up bids that went to corporations for $33 a square yard.
That company then sold the contract to another company for $12 a square yard.
So on and so forth, until the company cleaning up was getting $3 a square yard.

reply to post by Myendica


WOW... I had not heard of the Katrina Square Yard story...

$18 @ 12 hour days, assuming 1.5x for OT = $65k per year

These guys will be dead in 10 years from Benzene, arsenic and methane poisoning so I assume a 6 hour break is OK at the end of the day.

Balloons and ponies.

These guys are hired because otherwise the public would be screaming about 'nothing' being done.

So, even though there is nothing that can be done by some guys with shovels and plastic bags (i mean, really, there 150 million gallons and counting and you're gonna clean it up with janitorial equipment???), they hire people to stand around holding shovels so that the general public feels assured that someone else is doing "something".

You asked for it, you got it!

[edit on 6-7-2010 by justadood]