Congress to President: End Wage Theft & Issue Good Jobs EO

Yesterday, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus – joined by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, Democratic Caucus Chair Xavier Becerra, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Chair Steve Israel – conducted at an Ad Hoc Hearing on Wage Theft to shine a spotlight how federal contractors routinely violate federal wage and hour laws.

“Because of my employer didn’t pay me overtime for working long hours, I am owed more than $22,000 dollars in back pay and damages,” testified Karla Quesada, a food court worker at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in Washington, D.C., who was honored on Tuesday as a White House Champion of Change for leading Good Jobs Nation workers to strike 7 times to protest wage theft and poverty pay.

Karla and other federal contract workers at the Reagan Building and Union Station filed “formal complaints with the Department of Labor alleging wage theft and seeking $4 million in back pay and damages.” La Opinion

A year later, the workers are still waiting for their wages…

WATCH THE CONGRESSIONAL HEARING VIDEO

US Reps. Keith Ellison and Raúl Grijalva, the CPC co-chairs, applauded the President for issuing the 10.10 Executive Order, but said more robust action was necessary to combat wage theft and raise labor standards on federal contracts. At the hearing, the CPC issued a letter to the President calling on him to issue a Good Jobs Executive Order that “would guarantee labor and employment law protections and ensure no contractors are exempt from existing laws. It would also give preference to employers which provide a living wage and full benefits, and to those that allow collective bargaining and prohibit worker strikes.” – Politico

“Demos recently published a study, Underwriting Good Jobs, showing that such executive action to put some 21 million Americans onto the road of joining the middle class … Obama could use the Good Jobs Executive Order to make federal procurement a spur to high-road employers. Millions would be helped directly.” – Katrina vanden Heuvel in The Washington Post

“The taxpayers of the United States believe that their hard-earned money ought to go to contractors who treat their employees fairly. The federal government should set high labor standards that can radiate throughout the rest of the economy.” – Rep. US Rep. Keith Ellison on The Ed Shultz Show

“There is precedent for presidential action to improve workers’ rights. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9017 … As a result, unions added millions of workers to their ranks, which helped build the biggest middle class in history.”– Peter Dreier in the Los Angeles Times

“The order issued by FDR – even more than the 1935 Wagner Act – enabled unions to raise standards throughout industrial America … The President made a start by issuing an order requiring all government contractors to pay their workers at least $10.10 an hour – but Obama could do a great deal more. Private employers that profit from government contracts should not just do the bare minimum. The government has the authority to demand that they be an exemplary employer…” Bob Kuttner in The Huffington Post