Source: finance.yahoo.com
Low-wage contract workers participate in rally on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. For the first time ever, low-wage contract workers at the Capitol went on strike - joining with hundreds of workers who will be walked off their jobs on Thursday from the Pentagon, Smithsonian Museums, The National Zoo, Union Station and the Ronald Reagan Federal Building.
A group of low-wage contract workers walked off the job at the Capitol and other federal buildings and landmarks on Thursday to press for higher pay.
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama raised the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10.10 an hour on all new government contracts beginning on Jan. 1. Congress so far has blocked Obama's efforts to raise the current $7.25 an-hour minimum wage to that level for all workers nationwide. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have acted on their own to raise the minimum wage.
Contract workers include those who serve food and provide janitorial services in federal buildings and museums. Protest organizers said about 400 workers participated in Thursday's one-day walkout. Demonstrators at the Capitol called for a "living wage" of at least $15 an hour and pressed for better working conditions.
"A lot of things have gone up. Wages have not gone up," said Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., one of about a dozen members of Congress who participated in the event.
The strike is the tenth by Good Jobs Nation, a national coalition of labor groups, since May 2013 and the first at the Capitol.
Reporting by Tom Raum, Associated Press.
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