NO PAY.
Just a week after their fifth – and largest – strike against poverty wages, contract workers are finding themselves protesting no pay due to the government shutdown. “I cannot pay the rent; I cannot pay the bills; I cannot nothing,” locked-out Smithsonian worker Luis Chiliquinga told the Huffington Post.
As BillMoyers.com notes, the contract workers “pushing mops in federal buildings and selling souvenirs at tourist attractions are living paycheck to paycheck … and can least afford to take a hit.“
Days before the shutdown, contract workers walked-off their jobs and marched to the White House to demand living wages. Striker Delano Wingfield told Salon that the workers focused on the White House because the President “should take a lion’s share of the responsibility” for taxpayer-subsidized poverty jobs.
Watch the Strike @ The White House video HERE.strong>
While Delano and 2 million other workers are paid less than $24,000 a year, a new report from DEMOS shows that the government spends $24 billion annually on top contracting executives. Writing in the Huffington Post, report co-author Amy Traub said the findings show how the contracting system is “an engine of inequality.”
The New York Times again called for reform, saying “Federal contracts dole out taxpayer dollars and taxpayer dollars should not be used to foster an economy that is built on low wages for workers …”
Members of Congress and religious leaders joined the strikers at the White House to urge the President to end government-subsidized inequality. Sen. Bernie Sanders released a letter to President Obama signed by 15 senators asking him to boost wages for workers. Rep. Keith Ellison released a similar letter signed by 50 House members.
In an interview on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, Rep. Ellison said that the House and Senate letters asked the President to declare a simple policy: “If you want a federal contract, you must pay a responsible wage.”
Al Jazeera suggested that the growing Congressional support for executive branch action “is a way to circumvent a Republican-controlled Congress that’s unlikely to raise the minimum wage.”
24 national religious leaders also wrote to the President to request an Oval Office meeting saying that federally-financed poverty jobs “raises fundamental moral and human rights issues that our faith compels us to address.”
A delegation of striking workers delivered the letters, along with a flash drive with 250,000 public petition signatures and over 100 personal “Dear Mr. President” letters from their co-workers, directly to Presidential aides.
Rev. Michael Livingston, former President of the National Council of Churches, accompanied the worker delegation into the White House. After the meeting, he told the Washington Post that the White House officials “were clearly moved by the stories they heard, and they seemed very receptive to the concerns we shared.”
Appearing on MSNBC’s NOW with Alex Wagner, Rep. Ellison expressed optimism that the President would take action. “I think the president wants to do it. I think the president’s heart is in the right place, we’ve just got to get his pen in the right place.”