National Petroleum Authority, Ghana

Workers brought in by BP to clean up the spillage on the Gulf of Mexico are protesting over poor accommodation. Many workers have been housed in floating hotel/motels —structures similar to trailers or shipping containers stacked on top of each other on a barge. The floating hotel/motels have been improvised to provide shelter since many of the coastal communities, especially in oil-soaked Louisiana, are sparsely populated and don’t have the ability to accommodate a sudden influx of people. However, the workers who are unhappy with this arrangement are protesting for better accommodation. BP officials have said the flotels were useful for keeping workers close to cleanup sites, thereby eliminating travel time. But some workers are not happy about it resulting in a group of fishermen deciding to go on strike in protest of their accommodations, and some workers have expressed concerns about safety.”We’re on strike, so we’re not going to work,” Jules Dag told WDSU, an NBC affiliate in New Orleans. “I’m not living on no quarterboat,” Dag said. “When I signed up, the agreement was we lived at a motel or somewhere they supplied us to live.”Dag said that some workers have no choice but to accept lodging at a ‘flotel’ because they have yet to be paid and have depleted whatever savings they had as a result.”We ain’t been paid yet,” Dag said. “We’ve used almost everything we got to live out here already. Forty days, we ain’t seen nothing yet. What we supposed to do for money?”One worker compared the living conditions to jail, saying, “If I wanted to be in prison, I would break the law and go to jail.” Privacy is scant, typically limited to little more than a retractable curtain, with common areas for showers, eating and leisure activities. The ‘flotels’ are powered by generators; with each pod holding 12 bunks. One of the logistical difficulties in combating the Gulf oil disaster has been finding housing for the thousands of workers brought in by BP and its contractors to work on cleanup and containment operations.