Norton to Speak at CPC Press Conference on Low-Wage Workers in Federal Facilities

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), whose district is what she called "the high-profile home of the federal government's collusion with those that pay low wages through leases and contracts with federal agencies," will speak at a Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and Change to Win press conference at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow, Thursday, July 18, 2013, at Columbus Circle, in front Union Station. The press conference will call attention to the struggle of low-wage workers employed by federal government contractors. There, Norton will stand in solidarity with the workers, who are on strike protesting what they call their "unlivable wages." At the press conference, the National Employment Law Project will also release a report on corporate profits.

"These low-wage workers are the leading edge of what I believe will become a real movement to give form to the rhetoric about the 99 percent," said Norton. "We should begin with pressure on the federal government. By distancing itself from these federal contract workers, through outsourcing, the federal government is betraying its own principles of providing decent wages, as it does to those whom the government employs directly. We are calling out the federal government to answer for allowing exploitative employers to often pass on to federal taxpayers the cost for health insurance and other benefits that private employers that offer decent wages shoulder in our country."

Norton has long-fought for improved wages for workers employed by federal contractors, and has participated in Change to Win meetings with workers. Earlier this year, workers employed by fast food and other retail and concession contractors that work with the federal government attended a CPC hearing that included Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), CPC co-chairs Congressmen Keith Ellison (D-MI) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and other members of the CPC, including Norton.

Norton will emphasize a CPC letter sent to the president on July 2, 2013, urging him to establish a working group of federal agencies to consider recommendations to improve wages, including counting wages in the point system routinely used in competitions to determine recipients of federal contracts. Norton will discuss how executive orders have been used in the past to promote public policy. For decades, for example, the federal government has monitored federal contractors to ensure that federal dollars do not fund discrimination.

The widespread selection by federal agencies of vendors and contractors that pay their employees low wages was documented in a recent Demos report, entitled "Underwriting Bad Jobs: How our tax dollars are funding low-wage work and fuelling inequality," which was released at a CPC press conference and rally in May, where Ellison and Norton spoke alongside low-wage workers.

Published: July 17, 2013