In addition to paying miserly wages, federal contractors are also among the worst violators of labor and employment laws.
That’s the conclusion of a new U.S. Senate report which revealed that 49 federal contractors were cited 1,776 times for significant legal violations and paid $196 million in penalties from 2007 to 2012.
Adding insult to injury, federal contractors often punish the whistleblowers who report illegal activity.
Antonio Vanegas, a cook in the Ronald Reagan Federal Building who worked 70 hours a week for as little as $6.50 an hour, recently ended up in deportation proceedings after filing a wage theft complaint.
Last week, The Huffington Post reported that Antonio, with the help of Good Jobs Nation, received permission to work temporarily in the United States and is eligible to receive a special visa for victims of crime, “dramatically changing a case that outraged advocates for immigrant workers.”
The New York Times, commenting on the Senate report, renewed its call for the President to take executive action to prevent labor law violations and to boost pay for federal contract workers.
An executive order “requiring contracting officials to consider the quality of jobs that a prospective contractor will offer … would challenge the damaging notion that the best contractor is the one with the lowest labor costs.”
The Washington Post noted that the White House was close to securing a Congressional deal to reduce the pay reimbursements of top contracting executives from nearly $1 million to $500,000 – but also urged the President to help contract workers at the bottom of the pay scale.
“If the White House really wanted to make a statement about the value of work, it could do so much more substantively by boosting the floor of what it requires contractors to pay their burgeoning workforce.”
In another story, The Washington Post reported that several hundred Smithsonian food service contract workers won a union after a series of one-day strikes sponsored by Good Jobs Nation.
The coming contract negotiations “mark a small victory in a growing movement for better pay for low-wage workers, an estimated 2 million of whom work for federal contractors.”
The Post, however, pointed out the deal does not include another major Smithsonian food contractor, McDonald’s at the Air & Space Museum – nor does it does it raise wages for the many other federally contracted workers who work at or under minimum wage.
“It is hard to make ends meet,” said Luis Chiliquinga, 64, who works at a McDonald’s restaurant at the National Air and Space Museum. He earns $8.32 an hour and has been working as few as eight hours a week. “I am disappointed that the president has not signed the order” to help all contract workers.
A big thank you to everyone who supported the workers fighting for a Good Jobs Nation in 2013!
In case you missed it, watch our video on the highlights from the past year.
As U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison said, “We all know that the President’s heart is in the right place … we just need to keep working to get his pen in the right place.” Onwards to 2014!