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Most people don't think about them until they're gone.
They pick up your trays at the food court and empty the trash bins at the National Air and Space Museum. They make uniforms for the military and drive truckloads of federally owned goods. In other words, they quietly keep things running smoothly at federal buildings in Washington, D.C. and around the country.
But the two million or so low-wage workers who work for private companies on behalf of the federal government say they aren't recognized or compensated fairly, and they're sick of it. [...]
As the capital is engulfed in scandals, advocates of campaign finance reform are intensifying their pressure on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, urging him to persuade the Legislature to rewrite state elections law in the hope that change in New York could have an influence nationally.
“I work at Quick Pita in the food court of the Ronald Reagan Building. I work nearly 12 hours every day serving lunch to the thousands of people who work in the building. But I am not here to tell you how hard I work. I am here to tell you that my employer does not follow the law,” testified Antonio Vanegas before a hearing of the Congressional Progressive Caucus yesterday.
Melissa Roseboro has worked at the McDonald's outlet at the Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. for nearly a year. The 53-year-old grandmother said she just got a raise—of 8 cents.
That brings her hourly wage to $8.33 an hour and was the reason she joined 200 other federal contract workers in the nation's capital to stage a one-day walkout Tuesday, forcing several food outlets in the city to shut down for the day. [...]
Today’s strike follows the release last week of a report from the progressive think tank Demos estimating that at least 1,992,000 workers receive $12 per hour or less while doing jobs backed by public funds.
Hundreds of low-wage employees of federal contractors walked off the job on Tuesday morning, demanding that President Obama sign legislation or an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay higher wages. The Washington, D.C., strike is led by a new campaign called Good Jobs Nation, formed earlier this month.
A handful of food-service workers walked off their jobs in the food court of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on Tuesday morning as part of a day-long protest of low wages paid to federal contract employees.
The series of protests, dubbed “Good Jobs Nation,” was in support of the contract workers who clean the offices, serve the food and take care of the museums and landmarks in the federal city, some of whom said they make less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. [...]
A group of about 200 protestors stood outside of a Wendy’s restaurant near Union Square in New York City Saturday. They were demanding that the fast food company sign on to the Fair Food Program, an agreement not to buy agricultural products from farms that employ low wage Hispanic and Haitian farm workers.
The protest is part of a larger campaign that started in 2001 that has thus far pushed eleven retail companies including fast food companies like Taco Bell, Subway, and McDonald’s to sign on to the Fair Food Program.