The most obnoxious and insulting pompous quote I've read since the flood

The state managed Recovery School District has.. typically.. been hiring non-union contractors to do the work of refurbishing the schools it intends to open this fall. The non-union contractors and sub-contractors, in turn, hire undocumented workers, pay them well below prevailing wage.. in cash.. no social security.. no overtime.

During Oscar Madrid's first seven days at Thurgood Marshall, he worked a total of 58 hours. But he was not paid time-and-a-half for the 18 overtime hours, as required by federal law. He said he taped a conversation with Rodriquez that he recounted from memory earlier this week. Rodriquez told him that he doesn't pay taxes and thus doesn't need to pay overtime, Madrid said.

When Madrid questioned further, he said, Rodriquez cut him off. "He told me, 'Take it or leave it,' " Madrid said.

Sitting outside during a lunch break last week, painters hired by SPM said most of them are undocumented workers from Central America with six or seven years of painting experience. Still, some said they had worked up to 240 hours in a two-week period for only $10 an hour -- with no overtime pay.

Madrid said his fellow painters are talented craftsmen who have been doing beautiful work inside the school. But to his mind, both taxpayers and skilled laborers take a hit when low-paying, cash-based subcontractors come to town.

"They're killing the work force in New Orleans," he said.

Such is the way of things in the Bush-Blanco-Nagin wild west of reconstruction. Carpetbagging contractors hired by the state exploit illegal workers with no means of defending themselves. All of this in order to avoid 1) taxes and 2) hiring from the ample pool of skilled, union labor in the area.

Herb Santos, Madrid's boss at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, said many union workers -- painters, plumbers, electricians, laborers -- depend on small, local subcontractors who, he suspected, are being underbid by out-of-town, "fly-by-night" contractors skirting labor laws.

"They're paying cash money with no matching Social Security, no benefits, no taxes, no workmen's comp," Santos said. "My subcontractors can't compete."

Santos sees the results firsthand: Nearly 40 percent of his workers are now unemployed. That compares with 2 percent to 3 percent unemployment rates before the storm. Across the Gulf Coast, union carpenters, electricians and plumbers in hurricane-affected areas are having the same problems, he said.

The laborers union is in similar straits. The last time work has slowed to this level was during President Reagan's administration, said Barry Kaufman, business manager for the Laborers' International Union of North America's Uptown New Orleans chapter. "The biggest lie in town is that we have no workers. That's a bunch of crap," he said.

But all of this is predictable.. standard procedure for reconstruction of US imperial possessions like Iraq.. or New Orleans. But what's truly fun about this story is the quote I've alluded to in the title of this post which comes from Louisiana Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek.. the man whose department is responsible for overseeing these contracts... for making sure that your tax dollars do not go to firms that violate the law or the rights of their employees. When asked about these violations Pastorek said,

"Does anyone expect me to do anything about this?" said Pastorek, the former law partner at Adams & Reese who took the superintendent job in March. "It's not the Recovery School District's responsibility. Our job is education."

In other words.. "Won't someone just think about the children?" which is a Yuppie Left placating way of saying, "Go fuck yourself"