US Features
Post-Katrina sugar factory thrives despite labour shortage
By Gabriele Chwallek
Aug 29, 2006, 19:00 GMT

St Bernard, Louisiana - At the Domino sugar factory southwest of New Orleans, Pete Maraia is desperately trying to hold on to employees in the tight post-Katrina labour market.

Nearly a year after one of the country's worst natural disasters, homes of moulding rubble still fill the landscape and about half the local residents have failed to return to some towns.

Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, killed at least 1,800 people, left 1.7 million families bereft of home and job in the immediate aftermath and undermined the network of neighbourhood and community endemic to the region.

In St Bernard parish alone, 45,000 homes were destroyed. Many residents fled and few have returned.

But Pete Maraia, the determined manager of the Domino sugar factory on the banks of the Mississippi River about 20 km southeast of New Orleans, managed to get the machinery running within 98 days - despite the broken windows, the swamped vehicles, the damaged buildings and the syrupy mess left by the flood-sugar mixture.

The plant was fully back to 100 per cent capacity by March, a rare success story that shines brightly against the persistent post- Katrina mess and colossal inefficiency of Washington, the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans. To date, no clear-headed redevelopment plan for the storied city of jazz has come forth, and failures have been documented in study after study. Investors hesitate to plunk money into such uncertainty.

Domino's story begins with an unusual core loyalty between workers and management, an atmosphere of mutual responsibility that has grown stronger since Katrina, Maraia said. During the storm, 10 workers volunteered to stay behind to keep the pumps running, and at one point were totally cut off from the outside world by rising waters.

'We are like a family,' Maraia said of the workers. 'The hurricane welded us together even stronger. Our success is their success.'

Immediately after the storm, while hundreds of thousands of others waited for the US Department of Homeland Security's emergency programme to deliver trailers or fled, Domino installed hundreds of mobile homes in its parking lot. Of the plant's 326 employees, 240 employees who had lost homes and most possessions moved in. Rent, water and electricity were provided free.

Taking a leaf from the 19th century practice of company towns, Domino became not only the place of work but also the place where they and their families slept, ate and watched their children play - first in the dust, since then, on newly installed playgrounds.

'It's like earlier times, when little towns were built around a factory,' Maraia said in February. 'It's the core of how you rebuild a community.'

By February, there were 700 people living in the trailers, including about 240 workers.

But in a major sign of progress, only about 400 remain in the makeshift quarters including about 120 workers. The others have managed to find temporary quarters or rebuild their homes.

Now the biggest headache for Maraia, as it is for other employers in the region, is a labour shortage. All told, the vintage 1909 Domino factory - one of the largest of its kind in the western world producing 6 million pounds of sugar a year - has lost about 46 workers permanently, who he would like to replace. To take up the slack, workers put in 12 hour shifts for overtime pay.

'We're having a very very difficult time getting new people to work here,' Maraia said. 'Almost every store and fast food restaurant and facility has 'Now Hiring! Now Hiring!' signs in their windows.'

'At McDonalds, you can get 11 dollars an hour and a signing bonus of 500 dollars,' he said. The wage at the fast food restaurant is nearly twice the national minimum wage.

Harvey Loupe, the plant's foreman, still lives in a trailer next to the factory. But even for him, things are looking up.

In February, he said he lived 'from day to day.'

'The waiting is hard, it's difficult, not to know what the future holds. But at least I kept my job, and the atmosphere here is good,' he said.

Now he is working to restore his home, Maraia said recently in a telephone interview, and Loupe's wife and four children have moved in with friends.

That's good news for his son Evan, who in February was playing amidst the gravel and dust of the parking lot as the giant factory loomed over his tiny person.

'Daddy, I'll buy you a house,' the three-year-old promised his father.

Meantime, those who remain now have an extensive sports complex with basketball and volleyball courts, swings and sliding boards, a horseshoe pit - and three pavilions for outdoor picnics.

And don't forget the garden, Maraia said.

There are flowers and 98 pepper and tomato plants, representing the 98 days it took to get the plant running again.