Workers cheated as federal contractors prosper [View all]

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, David Fahrenthold Retweeted: @Fahrenthold:

‘I feel like I’m being robbed’ @TaliaBuford @mrym_jml find federal contractors shorting workers.

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Workers cheated as federal contractors prosper

A Center analysis found that government agencies paid $18 billion over an 18-month period to companies with wage violations

By Talia Buford Maryam Jameel 6 hours, 38 minutes ago Updated: 25 minutes ago

@taliabuford

@mrym_jml

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... {E}ach year, thousands of contractors enriched by tax dollars skirt federal labor laws and shortchange workers. In fact, U.S. Department of Labor data show that upwards of 70 percent of all cases lodged against federal contractors and investigated by the department since 2012 yielded substantive violations.

But many of these violators go on to receive more federal contracts. An Obama administration effort to change that practice was derailed in late March by President Donald Trump. 

The Center for Public Integrity examined a subset of 1,154 egregious violators — those with the biggest fines, highest number of violations or most employees impacted — included in the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division enforcement database and cross-referenced them with more than 300,000 contract records from the Treasury Department. The Center found that between January 2015 and July 2016:

•Federal agencies modified or granted contracts worth a total of $18 billion to 68 contractors with proven wage violations. Among them: health-care provider Sterling Medical Associates, Cornell University and Corrections Corporation of America
•Of all agencies, the U.S. Department of Defense employed the most wage violators — 49, which collectively owed $4.7 million in back pay to almost 6,200 workers. The department paid those 49 contractors a combined $15 billion.
•Violations by the 68 contractors affected some 11,000 workers around the country — about the same number of people who moved to D.C. in 2016.