About

As we in the Gulf Coast endure the combination of a series of ecological and economic disasters, both natural and manmade, we've seen an unveiling of the often overlooked or latent yet extant side of society- the informal economy.
A side of Southern society that minorities (particularly poor Blacks) are often more familiar with than others, as issues of joblessness &socioeconomic marginalization continue to pervade the everyday lives of those populations.
It was with that in mind that gave us the impetus to ensure that those people find representation following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We recognized that those people would be overlooked (as they nearly always have been) during the corporate attempt to run damage-control and ostensibly rectify the disastrous economic fallout.
When Kenneth Feinberg, Administrator of the BP Victims fund, was recommended to oversee the compensation process, he was tasked with the duty of righting BP’s wrong-- to bring justice to the situation by fairly compensating those who had suffered from the fallout of the spill. A proposition that has yet to see the light of day.
Instead of righting BP’s wrong, which has amounted to an assault on the lives & lands of millions of people along the Gulf Coast, he's only protected the corporate interests by constructing a compensation process that doles out hush money & blatantly neglects those who are without the means to represent themselves or their claims (spillionaires-article). That's b/c the Gulf Coast Claims Facility does not account for the poor living along the Gulf Coast that make their money “off the books.” This population is the most economically vulnerable of all those who have a rightful stake in compensation. These are the very poor who have had to resort to less conventional or formally sanctioned ways of feeding themselves & their families.
Unfortunately, because these communities go unrepresented & overlooked, many of the less cognizant among us think of an “informal, cash economy” as being synonymous with the “black market.” That's not what I am referring to. I'm referring to men who care for their families by taking an endless series of isolated cash jobs doing things such as yard work, cement finishing, building fences, barber’s, selling shoes, detailing cars, preaching part-time, cutting grass or demolition, chopping and selling firewood on the roadside or even by non-commercial fishing. I am referring also to women who take similar jobs
doing hair, cleaning houses, babysitting their grand babies, cooking, washing cars, washing boats, washing windows on the beaches, selling clothes or running a flea market booth on the weekends, etc.
Many of us will ask “just how prevalent is the informal sector?” After all, it does not seem intuitive that there could be over 10,000 claimants living in this manner seeking compensation from BP via GCCF. The truth is that informal employment accounts for 51% of North American non-agricultural employment* by some estimates (*migrant worker numbers don’t throw off that statistic by making it higher than it should be).
That means that half of all North American jobs are “off the books.”
It is nearly impossible at this time of near economic despair to not know someone who seemingly cannot find work or to have been in that position ourselves. Fortunately, when the American Dream fails us, the spirit of American Ingenuity does not and the people find their own way- ON or OFF the books.
We met with Mr. Feinberg, by his request concerning the above issues and to discuss what could be done in order to see to it that none of these vulnerable populations fall through the cracks. Ken Feinberg fully agreed that this was a legitimate concern and that something should be done to address the special case of these vulnerable cash economies. Ken Feinberg stated that, “most of these claimants do not have tax records and are poor: this should not exclude them from being paid their claims with somewhat minimum documentation and that local clergy sign off on all of these claims.”
We have done this & organized claimants in the Gulf Coast region upon Feinberg’s request. We slowly but surely accumulated over 10,000 claims over the course of several months, had them tirelessly formalized through a vigilant law firm and promptly proceeded to turn them over to Feinberg and GCCF for payment. Instead of reciprocating our efforts and keeping his end of the agreement, he has since reneged & has hardly made any payments at all. He has continued to meet with this group over 17 or more times promising to make payments.
Though this inaction has only served to further weaken an already broken sector of society, it has not stopped us from seeking justice for those who have been made into the collateral damage of corporate greed and it HAS NOT shaken our resolve to elevate these humble people into the realm of sociopolitical legitimacy within the public eye.

Art Rocker