By Melanie Trottman
A union-backed group is pressing President Barack Obama to use his executive powers to ensure the government gives preference to federal contractors paying more than minimum wage.
The group — Good Jobs Nation – is pressing Mr. Obama to sign an executive order that gives so-called model employers an advantage in receiving federal government contracts. The group considers a model employer one that pays at least $15 an hour, offers regular work schedules and provides “decent” benefits. The $15 rate is more than the $10.10 hourly minimum wage federal contractors must pay their employees on new or renewed contracts under an executive order that Mr. Obama signed last year in February.
Good Jobs Nation, an advocacy group for low-wage federal contract workers, asked Mr. Obama last year to sign a model employer executive order but it stepped up pressure Thursday by issuing a new report to strengthen its case.
In its report, the group said declining union density has driven down the prevailing wages federal contractors are required to pay. The organization argues that decades-old contract wage laws, like the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 and the Walsh-Healey Act of 1936, have depended on strong unions to set living wage rates and encourage government enforcement. Last year, America’s overall union-membership rate fell to 11.1% of workers, continuing a decadeslong slide from about 20% 30 years ago. The rate in the private sector was down to 6.6% last year.
“The research we’re releasing shows that as America’s unions decline so too do federal contract wage rates,” said Joseph Geevarghese, the Deputy Director of Change to Win, a union coalition that partially funds Good Jobs Nation. “Prevailing wages are fast becoming poverty wages in America,” Mr. Geevarghese said, especially when employers don’t meet the current legal requirements.
Good Jobs Nations said it is sending the report to the White House and to Labor Secretary Tom Perez. It is also asking the Labor Department to investigate the pay of federally contracted janitors, tour bus drivers and other workers at several locations in Washington, D.C. The workers have been paid base wages below the hourly rates required, the group alleges.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.