Low-wage govt. contract workers strike -- again

About 50 workers at the Reagan Building and the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C., walked off the job today to protest poverty wages and widespread wage theft by federal contractors. Earlier this morning, a group of workers visited the home of Dan Tangherlini, the head of the General Services Administration, which owns the buildings and contracts with the franchisees that do business from them.

Josh Eidelson at The Nation tells us:

Tangherlini can be seen standing in his doorway, telling the group on his porch, “I’d like to look at the issues that are involved. Obviously we’re interested in trying to find a solution to these problems.” One striker tells Tangeherlini, “We don’t want to, like, steal, you know. We just want what we’re supposed to get.” Tangherlini responds, “I completely understand. All right, take care.”

Watch the visit here.

ThinkProgress reminds us this is the second time this year the workers tried to pressure the government to demand its contractors treat workers better.

The earlier strike led to 10 of the workers – who get organizing help from a union-backed group called Good Jobs Nation but do not have a union themselves – being fired, as The Nation’s Josh Eidelson reported at the time. The managers in question ultimately backed off, and the workers returned to their jobs at the Ronald Reagan Building. That building is the focus of a Department of Labor investigation prompted by worker complaints of wage and hour violations.

Another worker revolt in DC

Good Jobs Nation, the group working to organize the workers, wants Labor Department to investigate the employers for wage theft and worker harassment. After one three-year employee walked off the job in May, he was held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for four days and fired by Quick Pita, according to Eidelson. The company claimed he was fired for not preparing a sauce quickly enough.

Ned Resnikoff at MSNBC tells us:

...Good Jobs Nation has drafted a 16-page complaint addressed to the U.S. Department of Labor, which claims that private contractors within the Reagan Building have repeatedly violated the Fair Labor Standards Act through “payment of wage rates under the federal minimum wage, 60 to 70-hour workweeks without payment of overtime, and use of false or deceptive record-keeping to conceal these violations from employees and public authorities.” 

On Tuesday morning Good Jobs Nation group personally delivered that complaint to the home of Dan Tangherlini, acting head of the GSA. The GSA, which owns the Reagan Building, took the complaints to the Department of Labor and the Trade Center Management Associates (TMCA), the private company which manages the building, saying it looks forward to the results of the investigation.

The federal government employs more low-wage workers than Walmart and McDonald's combined, according to a Demos report released in May:

Hundreds of billions of dollars in federal contracts, grants, loans, concession agreements and property leases go to private companies that pay low wages, provide few benefits, and offer employees little opportunity to work their way into the middle class. At the same time, many of these companies are providing their executives with exorbitant compensation. 

Today's strike is the latest in a wave of job actions by low-wage worker across the country. Last month, Walmart workers went on strike for two weeks and traveled to the company's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters in bus caravans modeled after the freedom riders of the Civil Rights era.

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Tuesday, July 2, 2013