Pentagon workers strike:“Mr. Obama-I work hard to serve American heroes & I shouldn’t end up with 0”

[kpete]

WEDNESDAY, JAN 22, 2014 06:00 AM PST
Breaking: Pentagon workers strike over poverty pay
“Mr. Obama, I work hard to serve American heroes, and I shouldn’t end up with zero”
JOSH EIDELSON


Non-union cleaning and concessions workers at the Pentagon plan to walk off the job for the first time Wednesday morning, the latest in a series of federally contracted worker strikes designed to force the president’s hand. Organizers hope dozens from the Pentagon will participate today. They’ll be joined on strike by workers from the Air and Space Museum, Ronald Reagan Building, and Union Station, government-owned buildings where workers have staged a series of past one-day work stoppages for the same purpose.

“I moved back with my parents because I couldn’t afford rent,” 52-year-old Pentagon cooking and cleaning worker Jerome Hardy told Salon in a pre-strike interview. “My teeth are decaying, my teeth are bad,” he added, but “I can’t afford to take off to get my teeth fixed.” Hardy said after eight years of work at the Pentagon, “I still make $9 an hour. Eight years, I haven’t gotten a quarter raise, a dime, a nickel, nothing. So my bills are falling behind. I need more money.”

As I’ve reported, the strike campaign by the coalition Good Jobs Nation – backed by the union federation Change to Win – aims to urge President Obama to wield executive authority to raise labor standards for those employed under federal contracts. Taxes fund around 2 million jobs that pay no more than $12 an hour, according to the progressive think tank Demos; federal contracts worth $81 billion went to companies that had collectively paid out close to $200 million in penalties and back pay, according to congressional Democrats. “Mr. Obama,” said Hardy, “I work hard to serve American heroes, and I shouldn’t end up with zero.”

The White House and the Office of Management and Budget did not respond to inquiries last week about workers’ call for executive action. Since Good Jobs Nation’s launch last May, organizers say the campaign has secured a (reportedly inconclusive) meeting with the head of the General Services Administration, spurred union recognition for about 220 museum workers, sparked a Department of Labor investigation into alleged wage theft, and largely succeeded at using community protest to reverse or avert retaliation against strikers. But the campaign so far hasn’t received any direct public response from the president.

more:
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/22/breaking_pentagon_workers_strike_over_poverty_pay/

[global1]

1. These Non-Union Cleaning And Concessions Workers Should Shut Down DC.....

They need to walk off from all federally contracted jobs in DC. That would get some attention.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

4. Walk off the job and head to Congress. Go to Mitch McConnell's office and demand that the NLRB

head be confirmed!!!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

2. Why are they blaming the president? He's trying to get the NLRB head confirmed!!

The ReTHUGS are holding up/blocking the confirmation.

Again, here's another example of liberals and our ODS, blaming the WRONG people!!

[SMC22307]

6. You know the political affiliation of all those workers making only $9/hr?

And did you really just assign "ODS" to some poor janitor trying to survive in the DC area on $9/hr? Really?

Obama is the executive they are seeking action from, not McConnell. The buck stops SOMEWHERE, contrary to the belief of many on this site. I've never seen such a coddled President, and I've lived through close to ten administrations.

The White House and the Office of Management and Budget did not respond to inquiries last week about workers’ call for executive action. Since Good Jobs Nation’s launch last May, organizers say the campaign has secured a (reportedly inconclusive) meeting with the head of the General Services Administration, spurred union recognition for about 220 museum workers, sparked a Department of Labor investigation into alleged wage theft, and largely succeeded at using community protest to reverse or avert retaliation against strikers. But the campaign so far hasn’t received any direct public response from the president

That silence has drawn increasingly public pushback from the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who are among 50 House members to write to the White House in support of the workers’ demands. In an unusual move, CPC Co-Chair Keith Ellison, D-Minn., last week questioned Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors chairman, Jason Furman, from the audience of a panel at a think tank. Asked by Ellison about prospects for progress “outside of legislative action” on behalf of contracted workers, Furman answered that, “There’s no doubt that the biggest thing we could do is something legislative,” because “the biggest question” is, “How can we make sure that there’s no one in this country that’s paid less than $10.10 an hour?” Ellison told Salon that was “the most remarkable dodge I’ve ever seen.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders offered a more optimistic assessment, telling the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent he was “very pleased” that, at a private meeting with Senate Democrats, “the president and members of his administration indicated they’re giving very serious consideration to this proposal.” Sanders said Obama “is weighing the pros and cons in terms of the impact on the overall debate.”

Hardy told Salon he’ll be watching next week’s State of the Union address in hopes of hearing a new commitment from the president. “I don’t know why he didn’t do it,” he said. “But … I think he’ll change his mind. I think he will.”

Make him do it. Isn't that what Obama said to do? Have THEIR backs, Obama.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

13. He has their backs. Make him do what exactly? There's only so much he can do.

And yes, it IS ODS! Sorry, but it is. You either know how government works and blame the right people or you don't.

[A Simple Game]

32. Please explain to me how the head of the NLRB is going to get a raise for the workers. n/t

[Bandit]

11. I don't think they are blaming him so much as asking for his help.

He probably could by Executive action, create some change that would result in their getting higher pay. Obama just needs his feet held to the fire as he asked us to do.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

16. Hold his feet to the fire, but there's only so much he can do without Congress. I work for the Fed

government. He can't do much without congressional action.

BLAME THE RIGHT PEOPLE!!!

[JDPriestly]

23. President Obama could drop his plan to push the TPP.

The TPP is going to lower American wages just as NAFTA did. What good does it do to ask for higher wages if our entire economy is in decline because of our trade agreements.

The price that corporations should have to pay for getting "free" trade is to pay higher wages to workers all over the world and take less in profits.

If we are to have free trade and the lost jobs in America that result from that trade, then we have to have more profit-sharing by that elite group that benefits from the free trade.

The issue of these wages is important to DC and to the workers themselves. But there is a bigger issue behind it all.

[former9thward]

12. This has nothing to do with the NLRB

First of all everyone at the NLRB has been confirmed.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/314503-senate-votes-to-confirm-all-five-nlrb-members

Second this dispute has nothing to do with the NLRB. Obama can issue an Executive Order ordering federal contractor minimum pay be raised to a certain level. No need of the NLRB to do anything. NLRB does not set pay for anybody.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

15. Executive action doesn't really do anything. It takes an act of Congress to affect real change

to their wages.

[former9thward]

17. No.

Obama could issue an EO stating that agencies under his control would only consider bids from companies that paid a minimum of $15.00 per hour. That would be real change to their wages. That why they are protesting. They know that.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

18. He has no power of the purse to execute that order. Who has the money to carry that order out?

Where's the money coming from?????

[former9thward]

20. Congress has appropriated a certain amount of money to get work done by contractors.

If by giving an EO that amount of money was used up before the work was done then that company would either have to stop working or accept a smaller profit.

[Vincardog]

21. How much do you think it costs to require anyone bidding on a Federal Contract to prove they pay

at least $15/Hr? Make it part of the bid process. Next objection?

[JDPriestly]

26. That is not difficult.

You do it the same way that you did or do the check on minority hiring (which is done at least in some states). You have the contractor list the positions and the numbers of people paid at various wage levels. Lying on a report to the US government is a serious matter. It could even be a felony in some cases.

[1StrongBlackMan]

25. Actually ...

He/she is right on this matter. President Obama does have the authority to issue such an Executive Order ... and I suspect that he will (maybe/probably not $15.00/hr, more likely in the $10.00-11.00 range).

But first, he needs something like this strike to hit the front page; so as to "justify" it with most of the electorate.

However, there is significant peril in that E.O. waters, as those working for non-government contractors will hit him with the "What about me?" narrative; not understanding that E.O.s do not apply to private industry, except in times of national emergency ... and despite what "we" know, the majority of the electorate doesn't see the raising of the MW as a national emergency.

Further, issuing such an E.O., will likely give legs to the gop's "government over-reach" narrative.

[Vincardog]

34. Considering the gop's "government over-reach" narrative is constant and unending I do not see

the harm. I wish PBO was 1/10,000,000 the screaming liberal the RW nutz say he is.

The point is they will lie incessantly so why pay any attention to passes their diseased lips?

[1StrongBlackMan]

35. Because there remains ...

a significant portion of the electorate that still believes what passes their diseased lips ... and another portion that doesn't know what to believe. And both of these groups vote.

[sabrina 1]

39. He can make it hit the front page by making a statement pointing at the Republicans. Challenge them

publicly. MAKE it a debate about workers pay. Do you think for a minute the Republicans want that? Here's you know what is the right thing to do. If you know the it will embarrass Republicans, then do it.

And there is no action, they should all go out on strike, take a lesson from those who are DENYING them a livable wagy, shut down DC, let the billionaires clean their own toilets for a change.

[Scuba]

40. Your posts on this thread suggest that President of the US is a job with no power, no authority.

No bully pulpit, nothing. Kinda silly.

[malaise]

3. But but but they privatized that and the thieves

cannot make enough profits if they don't rob the workers.

Breaking point is coming across the planet.

[SamKnause]

5. Nationwide STRIKE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last edited Wed Jan 22, 2014, 02:42 PM - Edit history (1)

NATIONWIDE strike is the answer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The people have power.
There is power in numbers.
There's strength in unions.


POWER to the PEOPLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. K&R #5 This should definitely be on the greatest page. n/t

[ProSense]

8. Think Progress:

Pentagon Workers Strike Over Poverty Wages Paid By Federal Contracts

By Alan Pyke

Food service and janitorial staff at the Pentagon are going on strike Wednesday morning, opening a new front in the ongoing fight to get President Obama to end the federal government’s practice of paying poverty wages to contract employees at federal facilities.

The Pentagon employees’ walk-out follows similar strikes by service workers at federally owned, privately operated facilities in Washington, D.C., such as the Ronald Reagan Building, Union Station, and the Smithsonian museum food courts. It also comes after wage theft charges against employers at the Reagan Building and the train station. The expansion of the campaign to the Pentagon comes almost exactly eight months after the first strikes led to retaliatory firings by employers, indicating that efforts to intimidate workers did not succeed.

The workers in question are on the payroll of companies like Dunkin Donuts and Taco Bell, but in a sense their real employer is the federal government. The government hires fast food, retail, security, and janitorial companies to service contracts for federal properties. Those contracts give the government a chance to set wage and hour terms for the on-the-ground workers who will actually cook the food and haul the trash. Federal contracts of this sort actually prop up more low-wage jobs than notoriously low-paying companies McDonald’s and Walmart combined. At present, three in four of these workers make less than $10 per hour, and four in 10 rely upon public assistance despite working a full-time job. The same contracts funnel a total of $24 billion per year to the CEOs of the companies that pay their workers so poorly to staff public facilities.

Unlike millions of other low-wage employees, the ones fulfilling federal service contracts can get a raise without an act of Congress. The workers, backed by a group of about 17 House progressives, want President Obama to exercise his executive authority to improve their pay and get taxpayers out of the business of paying poverty wages. The administration has kept quiet on the topic for months as the congressional progressives who favor the move have gotten louder and begun criticizing the president’s inaction, and both workers and lawmakers hope Obama’s upcoming State of the Union address will include an announcement about raising federal contract worker wages with the stroke of a pen.

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/22/3189571/pentagon-workers-strike-wages/

Obama weighing executive action on minimum wage?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024354098

As for raising the overall minimum wage...

Corporate shills take aim at workers fighting for a living wage

by Ian Reifowitz

<...>

The above image was part of a full-page ad produced by the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) that appeared in the New York Times last Tuesday. In addition to the photo, the ad condemns the push from Congressional Democrats and President Obama to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2016 and index it to inflation going forward. My first thought (after resisting the urge to just rip the ad right out of the paper) was: I wonder how many actual unemployed and minimum wage workers the ad's creators surveyed before deciding what they need and don't need. What do you think?

The ad cites "most studies" as showing that a minimum wage hike doesn't actually help poor people, and then claims "The Best Weapon in the War on Poverty Is a Job." What the ad is actually trying to do is pit the unemployed against minimum wage workers seeking a living wage. There's a lot of bunk being peddled here. Let's unpack it piece by piece.

First, the academic, nonpartisan-sounding assertion about poverty and raising the minimum wage is simply incorrect. This Washington Post article by the Roosevelt Institute's Mike Konczal makes quite clear that the scholarly consensus is, in fact, the opposite. Even among scholars who disagree over whether raising the minimum wage has an effect on employment, there is no debate that doing so would reduce poverty, according to a recently published, comprehensive survey of relevant academic studies.

Konczal, relying on the data produced in the survey article, estimates that the Democratic minimum wage proposal would raise 4.6 million Americans above the poverty line, and increase by $1,700 a year the income of people at the tenth percentile from the bottom. More broadly, enacting the proposal would result in a noticeable increase in what folks in the bottom 30 percent would earn, and would have no discernible impact on households at the median income level.

<...>

The Employment Policies Institute is little more than a shill, a front group for the restaurant industry and other corporate, right-wing interests, as documented by the Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch. Here's more on these shills:

The Employment Policies Institute operates from the same office suite as Berman and Co., a public relations firm owned by Richard Berman. This is not an opinion; it’s a fact anyone can verify by viewing EPI and Berman and Co.’s websites.

(snip) At the Center for Media and Democracy, we have spent 20 years tracking disinformation and spin, and Richard Berman has long been one of our favorite research subjects. Berman came out of the restaurant industry, spending several years as a top executive at Steak and Ale before launching Berman and Co. to help advocate for corporate America. His clients have included tobacco companies (for which he formed an entity he called the Center for Consumer Freedom) and the alcoholic beverage industry (for which he created the American Beverage Institute). He was once profiled on a 60 Minutes piece titled “Dr. Evil.” But one of his most successful products has been the Employment Policies Institute.

EPI regularly opines in the press on a host of topics. Recently it has been working to show that restaurant workers don’t need higher wages or paid sick days, but few Americans are informed by the press that this “think tank” is just one or two individuals working for spinmeister Berman.

Berman's Employment Policies Institute opposes not only an increase to the minimum wage, but a minimum wage of any kind. Previously, it has lined up with the right wing against health care reform, and—in what may be a first for a self-described "nonprofit research organization dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding employment growth"—took out a full page ad attacking ... wait for it ... ACORN.

CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) has created a website called "Berman Exposed" that offers the following:

Richard Berman is a Washington, D.C.-based hired gun who uses front groups to defend his corporate clients against the public interest. Using his lobbying and consulting firm, Berman and Company, as a revenue vehicle for his activities, Berman runs at least 23 industry-funded projects...and holds 24 "positions" within these various entities.

The anti-minimum wage ad is part of a larger push by corporations—spearheaded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—to attack the interests of workers. The lead article in Friday's New York Times Business section examines the push in detail. For good measure, that article notes that Berman has been paid millions of dollars by corporate interests to oppose labor unions and push hard against an increase in the minimum wage.

On the merits, the case for raising the minimum wage to (at least) $10.10 an hour and indexing it to inflation going forward is a no-brainer. The purchasing power of the minimum wage is barely two-thirds what it was at its high point in 1968, and has been essentially flat since 1990.



The ad created by corporate shill Richard Berman also says we should focus on creating jobs, not raising the minimum wage. Never mind that, according to the real EPI, enacting the Democratic minimum wage proposal would increase GDP by $22 billion over the next three years, resulting in the creation of 85,000 net new jobs. That's in addition to lifting millions out of poverty.

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/19/1269641/-Corporate-shills-take-aim-at-workers-fighting-for-a-living-wage

Note:

Kos Media, LLC Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified

[JaneyVee]

9. This is what happens when contracts go to the lowest bidder. But free market!

Contracts should go based on merit and performance.

[former9thward]

14. Federal contractors do not go to the lowest bidder.

Common myth. They go to the company with the best performance. If companies are equal in that then it would go to the lowest.

[JDPriestly]

29. Paying a certain percentage of the contract value to low-wage workers should be measured as

part of the performance component of the contract review.

[El_Johns]

10. KR. contractors skim off the profit by paying their workers shit.

Hardy said after eight years of work at the Pentagon, “I still make $9 an hour. Eight years, I haven’t gotten a quarter raise...

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

31. Want to bet the contractors profit far more than $20 an hour

on each worker.

Many years ago I was working for a contractor on a cost plus 10% job (contractor charges 10% more than actual costs), I was being paid $5 an hour, I found out later that he was billing $15 an hour for my services.

[El_Johns]

36. I wouldn't be a bit surprised. I know for a fact it's that way in contracted home care. What a

racket.

[MrScorpio]

19. I love this

And it's the perfect place for it to happen. It's been almost 20 years since I left The Pentagon, I know how hard working the cleaning and concession workers are.

They deserve better pay and treatment. Especially in an environment like DC that can afford to make that so.


Solidarity!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. Obama's searching for his comfortable walking shoes so he can join them.

[1StrongBlackMan]

28. Did you miss ...

President Obama's: "If you don't act, I will" comments on raising the MW?

I suspect that move to be made, shortly after (or maybe, announced during) the SOTU Address.

[El_Johns]

37. That would be fantastic, & I'll be the first to say so.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

24. I haven't heard about this on my TV thingy! nt

[phil89]

27. I feel for the guy but

American heroes?

[Historic NY]

30. Shouldn't they be going after the company they work for....

the one that has the contract..Its not a government job.

[haele]

33. Lots of little nickle-dime fly by nights have taken jobs that used to be federal worker jobs.

Janitorial service, food service - those used to be full time GS 4 and 5 jobs with living wages, COLAs and Benefits. Or in the Pentagon, they may have been done by the occasional E-3 or E-4 on a duty rotation. But now, we have Cheney and Rumsfeld's Department of Defense, full of Fungible Troop "Warfighters" who's only job is apparently a singular one-trick pony/mercenary tasking (not do silly"serving their country" work like maintenance, policy/administrative work and training that treat military service as a service as well as a career), CEO Five-Stars, and revolving door Lobbyist positions.

Now, "to save money", instead of having we have contractors doing all that "non-critical" work using sub-contractors who may or may not be legally employed - and I'm not talking about whether or not they are citizens, but whether or not they are working under the table under falsified employment records for "training" wages or temp/part time wages for the workers that won't need security clearances, so there's no paper trail needed to justify the costs. The companies are pocketing profit, lying about how much they are paying in wages or if the workers.

The money supposedly saved by privatization of services isn't actually saved, but the "color" of the money changes - the costs aren't directly carried on the books that need to be managed by the office paying for the service, but instead is sent to the contract offices to "manage". There are still administrative and task management costs - just shuffled off to different departments; and the contractors are given usually the same amount of money to pay for a workforce and all the benefits they are supposedly providing to that workforce.
While they think they have traded off the costs of dealing with retirement, the actuality is that with an unmotivated, fungible workforce, the costs to actually complete a job to the standards that the dedicated career GS4 or GS5 used to be required to do it at are much higher.
Contractors usually don't have to justify meeting the standards the government requires to keep their jobs - you can write a contract to say anything, and don't have to expend an ounce more in effort than what the contract implies you need to do.
So for the most part, unless they're getting paid in wages, benefits, or respect that meeting the level those standards call for, your average contractor is going to treat that government job like a McJob, and his or her employer is going to treat the contract like a low-cost revenue stream. There's always going to be excuses and lawyers involved to get them mo' money and keep that trough pried open.

That's not what the taxpayers expect when they hear about privatization of services. Until it's way too late to complain about the declining level of service that "million dollars of savings" got them.

Haele

[El_Johns]

38. +1. I've read that the average person would be surprised how hollowed out the federal sector is.