There was a moving and powerful event this morning at Union Station in DC where low wage workers for federal contractors, leaders of the faith community, and members of Congress all did a little preaching to President Obama. Their message could not have been clearer: It is time to finally to do something real to help low wage workers step out of poverty and into the middle class.

The event was the kickoff for a new organizing initiative called Good Jobs Nation, a project that I have been working on with a coalition of faith, community and labor organizations. There was a report released by Demos, which documented that the federal government through its government contracts is the nation’s biggest creator of jobs paying less than $24,000 a year, and there was a video released at the event which does a great job of summarizing the issue which you can look at here:

Fast food workers in New York City, Chicago, and other cities; Wal-Mart workers all over the country have as well; truck drivers that take goods in and out of our nation’s ports; and workers at companies who contract with the federal government: they are all organizing.

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As you read this, Michelle Rhee is marshaling the troops to march on for Los Angeles Unified School District students. Because we all know Rhee puts "Students First," right? Here are her public reasons for the march:

• To drive voter registration and turnout for school board and mayoral elections
• To raise awareness of the unequal access to high quality education and the candidates' platforms
• To ask our candidates to listen to our community and commit to strengthening our public education system

There's a subtext in those bullets, trying to influence Los Angeles as it has in Chicago or New York or Atlanta or any metropolitan city: Charter schools will solve the problem.

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I am really excited that the long overdue battle over immigration reform and a path to citizenship has finally begun in earnest. While I am heartsick at the reason, it is good news that common sense gun safety laws are once again being discussed in this country almost two decades after we finally passed the Brady Bill. And the on-going, never ending budget fights remain urgently important in terms of stopping more damage to middle class and poor people in America. I know I will be engaging daily in the vitally important battles over all these issues, and I expect my progressive allies all over the country will be as well.

But I remain troubled, profoundly troubled, by the fact that fundamental economic issues seem to be the last thing on anybody’s minds in DC. Our economy may be slowly getting better, but we still have a very serious jobs crisis in this country- nowhere near to full employment and not on a path to get there for many years to come. Our manufacturing sector is still only limping along and our trade deficit remains catastrophically high. Our infrastructure is still badly in need of repair. Wages for most workers are still stuck in neutral or slipping compared to inflation, and a third of those who found new jobs after losing them in the great recession are being paid less than in the old job. Our housing market is getting stronger in some metro areas, but is still very weak overall in terms of prices, homeowners under water, and numbers of foreclosures and empty homes.

And looming over these economic problems is quite literally the elephant in the room: these gargantuan Too Big To Fail, and apparently Too Big To Jail, Wall Street financial conglomerates.

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Coke commercial by the White Stripes shown only in Australia and Great Britain

Score one for the good guys: After being pressured by Color of Change and other progressive groups, Coca-Cola has left ALEC — the cynical corporate coalition that has pushed a bevy of anti-democratic, anti-middle class, and anti-consumer initiatives.

Now that Coke's come around, next up is Walmart. Their response on the ALEC issue was equivocal and unacceptable. And the issue needs to be raised directly and firmly with the other companies that back the organization — a list that includes AT&T, Bayer, Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Foods, Pfizer, and UPS.

Standing Up

This weekend on "The Breakdown" we interviewed Rashad Robinson, Color of Change's Executive Director, about the Trayvon Martin case and the role of ALEC in "stand your ground" laws like Florida's. He indicated that ALEC's member companies were going to be a leading target of the campaign for greater political and economic justice.

A few days after that interview aired, Color of Change sent an email to its mailing list that read in part:

You and more than 85,000 Color Of Change members have called on corporations to stop supporting the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) because of its role in voter suppression.

We contacted Coca-Cola to make sure they understand that through their membership in ALEC, they are supporting racially-discriminatory voter ID laws. ... They told us they recognize the importance of voting rights but claimed that they weren't responsible for ALEC's voter ID legislation.

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Nearly 150 truck drivers effectively shut down shipping out of the Port of Seattle when they went to the state capitol in Olympia instead of the port, to protest dangerous work conditions in the trucking industry. Drivers were so concerned about the way the industry treats them that they risked their careers to make their voices heard.

This week the truck drivers – who toil under the guise of false self-employment – are making it their job to sound the alarm on occupational hazards, overweight containers, shoddy equipment, risks to motorists, and the culprits responsible for these rampant safety violations: their employers and their giant retail shipper clients like Wal-Mart, Sears, and Target.

The trucking bosses at Pacer, Seattle Freight, Western Ports and others were stunned, but the state troopers weren’t. Washington’s top cops testified before lawmakers right alongside the workers, detailing a dizzying array of dangers associated with the drayage industry: Chronic safety violations so serious that an investigative journalist discovered late last year that officers pulled 32% of rigs they inspected outside the terminals off the road — double the rate for trucks throughout the state. When specially trained troopers conducted more thorough inspections in 2011, King 5 TV reported, 58% of Port of Seattle cargo vehicles were yanked. And according to Captain Jason Berry’s testimony, an astonishing 80% have been put out of service during certain recent time periods.

The drivers called upon legislators to support HB 2527, which would address many of the concerns they have. They called upon allies to help spread their story and make the dangers of the trucking industry more widely known:

Semere Woldu, who has been hauling cargo at the Port of Seattle for 8 years, told the panel:

“Our work is extremely dangerous. So the safety laws are very important. Unfortunately though, we drivers are forced to pay for violations that we are not responsible for. We often get tickets or are cited for faulty equipment that we don’t own. One time, my boss knew I had a heavy load. He told me to go by the scale early in the morning when it was closed to avoid having the load weighed.”

More drivers cited these illegal pressures their employers put them under, and shared their fears for their personal safety and the lives of motorists. “Every day, I haul two or three loads that are overweight, possibly putting myself and others at risk,” said Aynalem Moba, a 14-year port veteran. “The truck could tip over. I’m afraid I might kill myself or someone else. Sometimes we’re carrying hazardous materials, and we don’t know it.”

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The struggle that workers face at the NFI warehouses in Chino, Calif.

A growing industry of temp agencies supplies -- and exploits -- workers that move the products sold by big box stores like Walmart. In sprawling warehouse areas in places like California and Illinois, a new wave of so-called 'logistics' companies hire temp workers to run warehouse distribution facilities that get products from manufacturers -- mostly overseas -- to stores like Walmart. The logistics companies hire large workforces on a daily basis, paying them low wages, giving them no benefits and putting them in grueling working conditions that lead many of the best workers to suffer from debilitating injuries that end their careers. The jobs are frequently given to African Americans and immigrants from Latin America.

Companies like Walmart hire logistics companies who then subcontract out to smaller companies who directly employ the warehouse workers, adding layers of bureaucracy that prevent the big box companies from suffering any negative blowback if the workers exploited or treated illegally.

Walmart may have been the end beneficiary of Dickerson's sweat, but the big-box retailer wasn't directly responsible for her low pay or her aching body. That's one of the many benefits to an employment arrangement based on outsourcing and subcontracting: The corporation at the top indemnifies itself from any unpleasantness at the bottom, thanks to the smaller corporate players in the middle. Many American companies have woken up to this fact, with broad implications for the future of blue-collar work.

"It seems to be spreading like wildfire," Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor of American labor history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says of such outsourcing, particularly as it relates to temp workers like Dickerson. "All of these companies, wherever they possibly can, they want to create a workforce that doesn't work for them. The question is, Why? What is the incentive?"

"They're smart," he says. "They run the numbers."

...

Such subcontracting enables corporations to essentially take workers off their books, foisting the traditional responsibilities that go with being an employer -- paying a reasonable wage, offering health benefits, providing a pension or retirement plan, chipping into workers' compensation coverage -- conveniently onto someone else. Workers like Dickerson, of course, aren't accounted for when Walmart touts that more than half of its workforce receives health coverage.

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Walmart is proudly proclaiming its progress towards its goals to become a better company. They tout their advancements in the areas of environmental impact and support for local farmers and local food. But they still have significant problems in the treatment of their workforce and the impact their stores have on local businesses.

The retailer is attempting to open a store in Burbank, Calif., and is facing opposition from local residents who fear the negative impact the story would have on the community. Walmart's recent expansions have been less controversial because the chain has begun to open new stores in existing, vacant big box stores abandoned by other retailers suffering from the weak economy.

Workers are still facing a company not interested in giving them fair wages. A recent study showed that Walmart could pay its entire workforce $12 an hour without seeing much, if any, loss of profits.

Activist group Our Walmart, which is made up of employees of the company, has a list of changes it would like the company to make to improve workers rights:

One of Sam Walton’s rules for building a successful business was, “Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking.” We are following that winning philosophy. However, too many of us do not have a true voice at our stores. Our concerns about providing the highest quality customer care and about making our jobs, quality jobs are ignored. Walmart should listen to OUR Walmart, celebrate our initiative, and follow our recommendations.

We are the foundation of the quality service and value Walmart provides its customers. Walmart should honor the hard work and humanity of Associates by living up to Mr. Sam’s promise of “respect for the individual.”

Associates who assert their freedom of association frequently face retribution from the company. Walmart should allow Associates to freely join OUR Walmart without fear of negative company action.

Associates who have tried to utilize Walmart’s Open Door have found that their issues are not resolved and confidentiality is not respected. Walmart should ensure confidentiality in the Open Door and provide in writing resolution to issues that are brought up and always allow associates to bring a co-worker as a witness.

Walmart publicly claims that pay for full-time Associates averages more than $13 per hour in some communities, when in truth most of us work for less than $10 per hour and are only scheduled for part-time hours, making it difficult to support our families. Walmart should follow through on its public statements and pay at least $13 per hour and expand the percentage of full-time workers.

Our schedules are often irregular and inflexible making it difficult to care for our families. Walmart should make scheduling more predictable and dependable.

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WalMart Employees

WalMart employees wanted the right to sue as a class for gender discrimination in the workplace. In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that the class, as currently defined, was too broad to proceed as a class action lawsuit.

NPR reported back in March:

Standing on the steps of the Supreme Court, Betty Dukes, the lead plaintiff, said Wal-Mart's appeal is an attempt to "keep us out of court so the facts will not be presented to the public at large or before a sitting jury."

Those facts, say the plaintiffs, show that when the case was filed 10 years ago, women held two-thirds of the lowest-level hourly jobs and only one-third of the management jobs; and that women were paid on average $1.16 less per hour than men in the same jobs, despite having more seniority and higher performance ratings.

Wal-Mart, however, hotly disputes those statistics, contending that there is no pay difference between men and women at 90 percent of its stores. And the company points to what it repeatedly calls its "strong policy" against discrimination.

Jezebel:

But Antonin Scalia's majority opinion lost four justices — former civil rights attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg, plus Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer — when he argued that there could be no class that was discriminated against because there was no written policy covering them all:

[...]

This is a novel trap: Because clearly individuals don't discriminate against a class of people — say, women who they think are less likely to be competent or committed — and nothing is on the books, systemic discrimination must not exist. Case closed!

Of course, Ginsburg and her Democratic-appointed colleagues saw it differently. In arguing that they would have sent the plaintiffs to a lower court and try the case under different rules, Ginsburg pointed out, "Women fill 70 percent of the hourly jobs in the retailer's stores but make up only 33 percent of management employees," and that "the plaintiffs' 'largely uncontested descriptive statistics' also show that women working in the company's stores 'are paid less than men in every region' and 'that the salary gap widens over time even for men and women hired into the same jobs at the same time." Those are a lot of individual decisions that have nothing to do with each other.

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This is tremendous. As the largest employer in the country, their agreement will make a real difference to the congressional fight over healthcare reform. Again, an incremental step in the process, but it's a good sign:

WASHINGTON — Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, joined hands with a major labor union Tuesday to endorse the idea of requiring large companies to provide health insurance to their workers, a move that gives a boost to President Obama as he is pushing for health legislation on Capitol Hill.

“Not every business can make the same contribution, but everyone must make some contribution,” Wal-Mart’s chief executive, Michael T. Duke, wrote in a letter to White House and Congressional officials, adding that he favored “an employer mandate which is fair and broad in its coverage.”

The letter was issued jointly with Andrew W. Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents two million workers, many of them in the health care industry, and John D. Podesta, who ran Mr. Obama’s transition to the presidency and leads the Center for American Progress, a Democratic policy organization here.

But Wal-Mart’s embrace of the employer mandate may come at a price. In its letter, the company says that if Congress imposes a requirement that employers offer insurance, it must also offer a guarantee to business that health care costs will in fact be contained, perhaps through a so-called trigger mechanism that would impose reductions if certain spending targets were not met.

“We’re for an employer mandate, but we believe that it has to be accompanied by these measures that are really going to deliver on the savings,” said Leslie A. Dach, Wal-Mart’s top lobbyist, who met with Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the proposal. “If any business is going to be asked to take on an employer mandate, to face changes in the tax laws, there should be some sense that the promise of the bill to reduce health costs will actually occur.”

The employer mandate is central to Mr. Obama’s plan for expanding health coverage to the nation’s 46 million uninsured, but many companies, including Wal-Mart, have long resisted the idea. But as health legislation moves through Congress, representatives of industry are becoming increasingly convinced that they must join forces with the administration to have a seat at the negotiating table.

The trade group representing pharmaceutical companies recently promised to cut the cost of prescription drugs by $80 billion over 10 years, and Democratic officials said hospitals were close to reaching a similar agreement on cost-cutting with the Obama administration. Mr. Emanuel said Tuesday afternoon that chief executives of other companies — he did not specify which — had also expressed interest in embracing an employer mandate.

“Everybody is now trying to get their seat on the train,” Mr. Emanuel said.