Delano Wingfield, 22, has been grilling up food and cleaning dishes at Roti Mediterranean Grill in Washington D.C.’s Union Station for almost a year. Struggling to get by on $9 an hour, he started encouraging coworkers to strike with him. His manager found out, he said, and slashed his hours.
“It was hard with 35 hours, and now I don’t know what I’m about to do with the 20 hours they gave me,” he said Wednesday. “I’m out here to make myself and everyone else more money.” (Wingfield’s manager did not respond to a request for comment.)
In a speech last July, President Obama vowed that “whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I’ll use it.” On Wednesday, an estimated 175 workers who serve food, sell mementos or do maintenance work in federal buildings in Washington D.C. went on strike for the day. Instead of showing up at their jobs, they showed up in front of the White House, where they urged President Obama to live up to his word.
Americans are coming to face the hard reality that they live in a new Gilded Age, with inequality at levels not seen since before the Great Depression. Even worse: Uncle Sam is subsidizing this lopsided economy.
Just because the government has shut down doesn’t mean Congress will cease its central function of making Americans’ lives miserable. While everyone watches the legislative back-and-forth on the budget, the House may vote this week to thwart a key new Labor Department protection affecting $10.5 trillion in retirement funds. Basically, House Republicans want to allow the financial services industry to continue to steal from your 401(k) and IRA plans. And far too many Democrats want to help them.
Low-wage workers followed members of Congress to the World War II Memorial on Wednesday to protest a federal government shutdown that had entered its second day.
The two-dozen protesters, organized by a labor group called Good Jobs Nation, work in federal buildings affected by the shutdown. The group has organized several small strikes and protests to draw attention to the estimated 2 million workers directly or indirectly employed by the federal government for low wages.
Removing the limits on total campaign contributions by a single donor, a restriction now before the Supreme Court, would lead to a huge increase in giving by a small group of very wealthy Americans, according to a new report released Friday.
Where does the corporate bottom line end and the public interest begin? Through the voodoo economics of federal contracting, Washington's "partnerships" with private corporations have drained the public trust straight into the pockets of top corporate executives.
Americans are outraged over the power of money on our government. In Citizens United the Supreme Court already increased the dominance of the wealthy and special interests on politics and policy. Now, in McCutcheon v FEC, the court is being asked to strike down one of the few remaining campaign finance laws that we have to fight corruption of our democratic government. After all, in a democracy the size of your wallet shouldn't determine the impact of your voice or your right to representation.
Nearly four years after its controversial ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court is once again taking up the issue of the regulation of money in politics. This time, the risk to the integrity of elected officials, and public confidence in government, may be even greater.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case that's been dubbed "the next Citizens United." The plaintiff, GOP donor Shaun McCutcheon, and his conservative allies say the case is about getting rid of restrictions on political spending that stifle free speech.
If you think we need more money influencing politics in America, then today could be a great day for you.
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments this morning in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), a case challenging the overall limits an individual can donate to political action committees, candidates and parties in a two-year federal election cycle.
The Supreme Court can hardly be faulted for having docketed McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission on the eighth day of a partial government shutdown that has all but crippled the national capital and separated hundreds of thousands of Americans from their jobs and paychecks.
The debate over America’s federal budget is getting stale — and getting us nowhere, as the latest government shutdown depressingly reminds us. Political obsession over budget deficits has now morphed into legislative extortion.
Washington D.C. Mayor, Vincent C. Gray vetoed legislation demanding that large retailers pay a higher minimum wage, Sept.15. The announcement came on the heels of Wal-Mart threatening to cancel plans for new stores in the District of Columbia if the minimum wage was increased.
Mayor Gray denied that he vetoed the minimum wage because of Wal-Mart’s threat in his weekly radio address.
Six years after finishing college – with a degree in molecular and cellular biology – Sydney Gray works 18 hours a week as a cashier at a New Orleans farmers' market. Other times, she volunteers there to get free food.
"I can't even get a job waiting tables," says Ms. Gray, whose two previous part-time jobs ended when the employers folded. "When I apply for jobs, I'm competing against people with master's degrees and PhDs."
Wal-Mart Stores is the country’s biggest private employer. Its low wages have incited labor protests and congressional criticism, and have created a cottage industry of public policy research.
As a retiree with a defined-benefit pension; a former public employee who defended public workers’ pension benefits for decades; and an advocate who, after leaving the Service Employees International Union, chose to spend several years trying to create a national effort to build a new all-American retirement system, I want to offer my perspective on some of the recent pension issues in Rhode Island.
“We are on strike today to have respect and dignity at work,” says Walter Melendez, one of approximately 40 Los Angeles port truck drivers who walked off the job at 5a.m. morning in protest of alleged unfair labor practices. The strikes featured the rolling “ambulatory pickets” that the truckers have excelled at—chasing down trucks as they leave the port and setting up picket lines in front of them.
Walmart can easily afford to raise pay for its low-wage workers by $5.83 an hour, to an average wage of $14.89, a new report from progressive think tank Demos concludes. All the retail giant has to do is stop its massive stock buybacks—which only serve to enrich a shrinking pool of shareholders, not to improve productivity—and put that money toward its workers.
Walmart spends $7.6 billion a year buying back shares of its own stock:
