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Showing posts with label federal contracts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label federal contracts. Show all posts
PRES Obama must sign an executive order raising the minimum wage of employees of federal contractors to a living wage. This will not make federal contracts more expensive, it will just cut into the obscene pay packages the executives of federal contractors receive. This from The Real News....
Workers and legislators demand President Obama sign an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractor employees.
JESSICA DESVARIEUX, CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT: Eight twenty-five is currently the minimum wage for federally contracted employees in D.C. Workers like 54-year-old Melissa Roseboro are making around that, and she says it's simply not enough to live on.
Melissa works part-time as a cook for McDonald's at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington. And the conditions have gotten so bad that she says she can't even pay her bills.
MELISSA ROSEBORO, LOW-WAGE WORKER: You know, a lot of people out here, we are struggling day to day [incompr.] homeless. I even have to go try to [incompr.] just to make ends meet.
DESVARIEUX: Workers are calling for help from President Obama, demanding the president sign an executive order mandating government contractors to pay a higher wage, similar to how President Johnson signed an executive order in 1965 mandating government contractors not discriminate against prospective employees based on race.
Fast forward almost 50 years and the fight for fair pay continues.
CROWD: We can't survive on eight twenty-five!
DESVARIEUX: Many are barely surviving, and taxpayers are the ones subsidizing this low-wage economy, according to a study by public policy organization Demos. Data shows that hundreds of billions of public funds go to private companies that pay low wages. There are more than half a million low-wage private sector jobs funded by federal contracts. Demos found that government contracts support almost two million low-wage jobs. That's more than McDonald's and Walmart combined.
But not all federal contract employees fit into this category. Executive pay can be as high as $760,000 a year. And a new report from Demos shows that nearly $24 billion a year goes to paying salaries of federal contractor executives.
Now a group of senators and congressmen have called on President Obama to step in and sign an executive order to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. Of those calling for higher pay was independent senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont.
BERNIE SANDERS, U.S. SENATOR (I-VT): Most of the new jobs being created in this country today are part-time jobs. They are low-wage jobs. And we have got to get a handle not only on unemployment, not only on income and wealth inequality; we have got to get a handle on raising wages throughout this country so that workers do not depend upon starvation wages.
The Real News also spoke with Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison and asked why there hasn't be more progress on the bill for a higher minimum wage or the executive order, considering the proposal was sent in July.
KEITH ELLISON, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE (D-MN): But we haven't seen the president put pen to paper and sign the executive order, even working on the people who work for federal contractors. And we believe it's time to do that. We've got 49 members of the House who agree that the president needs to sign an executive order. And we believe that he should do it and he should do it now.
Now, somebody asked: well, why hasn't he done it? You know, I specifically asked him that question directly. He told me it was under advisement. I hope that he's working on it. And, of course, the naysayers might say, well, it has budgetary implications; with the sequester maybe it might be tough. And there might be reasons, but I'm telling you that this is a fight worth having.
DESVARIEUX: President Obama has said in the past that no American should work full-time and live in poverty. And today protestors are making sure that he's keeping his word. Several of them were invited into the White House to speak to officials about their day-to-day struggles.
ROSEBORO: When you go to tell your story, then, you know, they are really amazed. But I do know this much, that they know that it's a lot of us out here. You know. And I don't know why I actually say they are amazed, because we're--it's a lot of us out here. You know, it's not our first time doing this, even though we're doing this the first time at the White House.
DESVARIEUX: Melissa and several other low-wage workers fighting with the group Good Jobs Nation wrapped up their meeting with officials from the White House. While there, they presented letters and a petition with 250,000 signatures calling for a higher pay.
Melissa says she remains hopeful that the change that she voted for by electing President Obama will one day come.
For The Real News Network, Jessica Desvarieux, Washington.
Bio
Jessica Desvarieux is a multimedia journalist who serves as the Capitol Hill correspondent for the Real News Network. Most recently, Jessica worked as a producer for the ABC Sunday morning program, This Week with Christianne Amanpour. Before moving to Washington DC, Jessica served as the Haiti corespondent for TIME Magazine and TIME.com. Previously, she was as an on-air reporter for New York tri-state cable outlet Regional News Network, where she worked before the 2010 earthquake struck her native country of Haiti. From March 2008 - September 2009, she lived in Egypt, where her work appeared in various media outlets like the Associated Press, Voice of America, and the International Herald Tribune - Daily News Egypt. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with a Master of Science degree in journalism. She is proficient in French, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and has a working knowledge of Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. Follow her @Jessica_Reports.
BP continues to stonewall the American people about the growing Deep Horizon disaster in the Gulf, even while the company reaps millions of dollars in profits each day from its other federal leases.
The White House, the Department of Interior, and Congress are all crying foul, but they are not taking action to hold BP accountable. If the Obama administration is serious about making BP pay, there is a very simple and powerful tool at its disposal: the EPA can take away BP's billions in federal contracts.
The Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to bar BP from receiving U.S. government contracts. Suspension of BP contracts would mean the loss of billions of dollars and effectively stop the company from drilling in federally controlled oil fields both on and offshore.
This is the strongest possible action that could be taken against BP.
Discretionary debarment is among the most serious actions EPA can take. EPA's own regulations allow the agency to ban BP from future contracts after considering "the frequency and pattern of the incidents, corporate attitude both before and after the incidents, changes in policies, procedures, and practices."
Prior to the current Gulf spill, EPA had linked BP to at least four instances of criminal misconduct and BP has paid tens of millions in fines for environmental crimes. According to the public interest investigative journalists at Pro Publica, the EPA is considering re-evaluating BP and determining whether the company's actions leading up to and following the Deep Horizon spill are evidence of an institutional problem inside BP that would qualify for debarment action.
If BP is hit with discretionary debarment, the company would lose valuable contracts for selling fuel to the military and would be prohibited from obtaining or renewing drilling leases on federal land. It could also cancel BP's current federal leases. The impact on BP's bottom line could be in the billions of dollars.
Neither Congress, nor President Obama, nor Interior Secretary Salazar have taken steps to truly hold BP accountable. It's up to EPA to use the regulatory tools at its disposal to make BP pay.
The American people are outraged by the politicians' inaction in the face of an exponentially growing economic and environmental disaster in the Gulf. It's time for EPA to take immediate and decisive action.
Your pressure works. Sign the petition to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson today.
CROWD: We can't survive on eight twenty-five!
