Congress Lets Big Banks Resume Risky Trades  Rolling Back Financial Reforms Enacted To Prevent Another Financial Crisis
Featuring
Timothy A. Canova Professor of Law and Public Finance, Shepard Broad Law Center, Nova Southeastern University


The big banks attached a measure to must-pass Congressional spending legislation which halts a restriction on the kinds of risky derivatives trading that blew up the US economy in 2007. It allows the banksters to gamble not only with other people’s money but with taxpayer guarantees for their losses. This is only the  beginning of  their planned roll back of financial reforms passed to prevent another financial crisis. Liberal democrats responded by calling for the breaking up the “too big to fail” banks, but is this really enough? Do we need to nationalize banks?           

Plus
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders' Senate speech railed against the big banks' Congressional maneuver easing restrictions on risky derivatives trading and called for breaking up the "too big to fail" big banks. 

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New Yorkers Carry The Torch Lit By The Flames of Ferguson Protests: Rising Up Against Racist Policing!  
featuring 
The families of victims of police murder who tell their stories, expressing our feelings at New Yorkers historic march
plus 
commentary from Dr. William Barber, founder Moral Mondays & North Carolina Chair, NAACP 

Hundreds of thousands, “we the people” across the country, led by families of victims of police murder, Black and Brown youth most vulnerable to racist policing, and a really diverse group of supporters marched against the governmental 
policies, their implementation and the internalized racist attitudes at the heart of the license to kill people of color!  Amidst the anguish felt by the participants over the most recent deaths of people of color, at the hands of  the police the crowds gave promise to pulling together, nationally in a sustained effort to confront racist police policies that give police “the license to kill” Black and Brown!  
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Nationwide, Across Industries, Low-Wage Workers STRIKE, also Calling for Justice for Victims of Police Murder!

Fast-food workers are on the move and they've sparked other low-wage workers to strike for their just deserts.  Fast-food employees in 190 cities, went on strike and they were joined by convenience, dollar store, airport service workers, and home care workers. Low-wage workers across the country are forging bonds and rising up in a mass movement for economic justice.  The workers, on strike for higher wages, better working conditions and to unionize also raised their hands high, chanting "Hands Up, Don't Shoot," "I Can't Breath, I Can't Breath," to show their support for victims of racist police murders.

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Sparked by Police Impunity for Racist Killings, New Yorkers Chanting "Hand Up Don't Shoot" and "I Can't Breathe" with Mock Coffins Held Aloft Take It To The Streets!

Thousands of New Yorkers took to the streets, expressing their anguish over racist police killings of people of color and their anger over police officers Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown and Daniel Pantaleo for the choke-hold strangulation of Eric Garner and their impunity from prosecution. Building Bridges brings you the sounds of protest - from the "die ins" to the blockades of travel arteries all over this city - listen to the stories of family members, thirsting for "justice" for loved ones killed, as a result of racist 
police policies and practices and hear from the broad array of New Yorkers, we the people who are prepared to challenge them.

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Walmart and Ferguson Protests Spread Across the Country
This Holiday season. 
With special guest Dr. Jamal Bryant with the Empowerment Movement’s Hand’s Up, Don’t Spend Campaign a new dimension in the Ferguson protests, speaks to us from a Walmart protest in Chicago building bridges between the two mass movements

Mass protests also fanned out across the nation in the aftershock of the grand jury decision to not indict patrolman Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown who was 18 years old and unarmed in Ferguson, MO. Protesters are making the connection to the long standing epidemic of police killings of unarmed people of color throughout the U.S. , the most recent of which also include the 12 year old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Eric Garner in Staten Island and Akai Gurley in Brooklyn. 

There were also demonstrations, marches and sit-in strikes at 1,600 
Walmart stores across the country, calling on the company to pay workers a minimum of $15/hour, provide full-time work with health care and union rights.  The country’s largest employer and the Waltons —Walmart’s majority owners—are abusing their power and hurting American families by allowing Walmart to violate workers’ rights. While the majority of Walmart workers are paid less than $25,000 a year, Walmart brings in more the $16 billion in 
annual profits; and the Walton family has built up nearly $150 billion in wealth.

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Walmart Arrests Dozens Who Sit-Down 
For $15/h Wage and Full-Time Hours

Martha Sellers and Maria Camarena, Walmart employees talk about the workers and their supporters arrested outside a Walmart store calling on the company and its owners—the Waltons—to end the illegal threats to and retaliation against workers calling for $15 an hour and consistent, full-time work at the country’s largest private employer. Hundreds of 
supporters rallied outside the store in Pico Rivera, California the site of the first Walmart strikes in 2012 to buoy the strikers – meanwhile the Walmart behemoth brings in $16 billion in annual profits and its  owners build on their $150 billion in wealth, the majority of Walmart workers are
paid less than $25,000 a year.  
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The Fire Next Time: Ferguson & Beyond Communities Organize  

Even were there to be an indictment of police officer Wilson in Ferguson, or of officer Pantelo for the strangulation of Eric Garner justice would remain elusive.  As long as police have license to kill Black and Brown men and women, and as long as people of color are economically marginalized, 
and state policies that intimidate, harass, criminalize and result in the imprisonment of targeted Black and Brown people persist there is no justice, no peace!   Thenjiwe McHarris discusses the significance of the protest movement in Ferguson and of UN Hearing she recently attended 
in Geneva where Ferguson was being discussed by The United Nations Committee Against Torture which heard testimony by Michael Brown’s parents.

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Four for Four...Even in "Red States" 
the Electorate’s Push to Raise the Minimum Wage“

Peter Davis, campaign activist for Time for a Raise campaign, 
a project of Ralph Nader's Center for the Study of Responsive Law 
and 
Paco Fabián , with the Good Jobs Nation an organization of low-wage workers employed by government contractors who are joining together to urge President Obama to use Executive Orders to give them a living wage and a voice on the job.  The Good Jobs Nation campaign is supported by a coalition of national faith and advocacy organizations, including the NAACP, Demos, Interfaith Worker Justice, Change to Win.

After last week’s election disaster, there’s some good news, in the 
minimum wage wins through ballot initiatives are sending a clear message: Americans across the political spectrum want to raise the minimum wage.  Now the electorate along with congressional progressives and allies are demanding more Presidential action to help low-wage workers and boost the economy.  Buoying this message in support of a rise in the minimum wage Peter Davis and Ralph Nader just co-wrote a letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi which states: "Buried underneath the coverage of the Democrats’ second midterm 'shalackin' in a row is a stark public sentiment 
that provides a path forward for your caucuses during the upcoming lame duck session... a minimum wage raise passed in every state in which it was on the ballot.

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Poverty, Racism & Policing, Mass Incarceration, Resistance 
and Social Transformation
featuring
Christopher Hedges, author of twelve books, including the best seller “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt,” New York Times 
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, the recipient of Amnesty International's Global Award for Human Rights Journalism, Truthdig columnist, educator behind the walls of the US prison system, and activist. This important public intellectual, and activist Chris Hedges gives a rousing analysis of increasing poverty and how our racist system has used policing and mass incarceration, but as well the resistance of those targeted and the struggle for social
transformation.

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BP May Be Fined Up to $18 Billion 
for “Willful Misconduct” for Spill in Gulf
featuring
Antonia Juhasz, an oil and energy analyst, author, journalist and activist. She has authored several books, including Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill, Juhasz is currently writing a feature article for Harper's Magazine on the impacts of the disaster on the deep ocean following her participation in a submarine dive to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico at the site of the spill

Federal Judge Barbier held that BP routinely put profit over prudence, people, safety, and the environment and the result was and remains catastrophic in the four years since the blowout on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig which killed 11 workers and sent millions of barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

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Celebrating Sonia Sanchez on her Eightieth Birthday
featuring 
Sonia Sanchez
and
Jessica Care Moore, internationally renowned poet, publisher, 
playwright, performance artist,

Now, a tribute to the beloved world renowned poet, humanitarian, scholar, and activist Sonia Sanchez on her eightieth birthday with Jessica Care Moore, and a special message to all of us from Sonia Sanchez  

Poet, playwright, mother, scholar, lecturer and peace activist, Sonia Sanchez is a renowned force of nature respected in literary and activist communities all over the world and by people of all races, identities, ages & backgrounds. In 2011, Sanchez was selected as the first poet laureate of Philadelphia. She is the author of more than 20 books, and has been awarded countless awards and honors, including the 1985 American Book Award for Homegirls and Handgrenades.  She is also the Poetry Society of America’s 2001 
Robert Frost Medalist. She was the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University and she held the Laura Carnell Chair in English at the university. She came of age in NYC during the Black Arts and Black Power Movements of the 1960s and ’70s. Currently based in Philadelphia, the former Harlemite is regarded as the Godmother of the Black Arts Movement. The late Maya Angelou heralded her as “a lion in literature’s forest.” Today’s poets, writers, hip-hop artists, grassroots activists, and public servants alike point to her work as their guiding light. “She opened the door for everything we do,” says hip-hop artist Talib Kweli.

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Beyond the Climate March - Flood Wall Street 
with
Anne Petermann,  Exec.  Dir., The Global Justice Ecology Project, just released the report "Green Shock Doctrine" and runs the climate-connections.org blog

Petermann said : The Global Climate  "march brought together a diverse mix of constituencies from anti-capitalists to Indigenous Peoples to representatives from communities impacted by climate change both in the U.S. and around the world. Each had their own set of demands, but the overarching theme was the need to build power from the grassroots and stop relying on governments and the UN to do this for us. Hundreds to possibly a few thousand of these folks will be taking part in the Flood Wall Street direct action to bring attention to the real culprits of climate change, and to expose the corporate capture of the UN." Petermann recently wrote the piece: "Confronting Climate Catastrophe: Direct Action is the Antidote for Despair: Or, Why the UN is Worse than Useless and we need to Flood Wall Street!" 

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On the Count, Using, Not Doing Time: 
A Truly Amazing, Authentic African American History Lesson 
with 
Marshal "Eddie" Conway   

Marshal "Eddie" Conway  a veteran of The Black Panther Party 
was held as a political prisoner for four decades in a government 
frame-up.  But whether behind the walls or now back in the 
community after his recent release, Convey exemplifies the 
power of love.  He is a theoretician, who melds his knowledge 
with activism, to prove that the educational key to self-growth 
and realization lies within  the collective process of striving for 
human rights and fundamental change wherever you are.

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Facing Thousands of Layoffs , Olive Garden, and other Darden 
Workers Prepare to Take Direct Action 
with 
Saru Jayaraman, Co-Founder and Co-Director, ROC United

Starboard Value, a hedge fund continuing to increase its control over the Darden restaurant chain, just released a 300 page presentation on the future of  Olive Garden, franchising out the company, increasing part-time scheduling, and thousands of lay-offs.Starboard Value and Darden Restaurants have continued to ignore the requests of a  petition, singed by thousands of Darden employees to meet with leadership from both the hedge-fund and restaurant company. The petition also calls attention to problematic labor practices, including the company’s elimination of auto-gratuities on large parties, unpredictable scheduling, and wages that
are unable to sustain a family. Darden Restaurants’ Inc employs more than 130,000 people across the U.S. The company’s annual shareholders’ meeting is confirmed to take place on October 10th in Orlando, Florida. Employees are planning direct action in New York City before the shareholders’ meeting .
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Eliminating NY’s Tipped Sub-Minimum Wage  
with 
Paul Sonn, General Counsel, Ntl. Employment Law Project (NELP) 

Marking a new front in the fight for fair pay for low-wage workers in NY a new coalition of women’s leaders, food delivery workers, and low-wage tipped workers are calling for an end to the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers by the Cuomo administration’s Wage Board charged with recommending an increase in the state’s tipped sub-minimum wage. A new report by NELP finds that a  Wage Order eliminating the tipped sub-minimum wage would benefit an estimated 229,000 low-wage tipped workers. The minimum wage for thousands of tipped food service workers remains stuck at just $5.00/hr. (tipped hotel workers earn slightly 
higher at $5.65 per hour). In many states the tipped minimum is far lower

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Exciting Labor Highlights From Sunday's Peoples Climate March

With our future on the line and the whole world watching, labor and community groups joined forces to take a stand to bend the course of history. And as the people took to the streets to demand that the world we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet; a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities, we were there.  Building Bridges was there to now bring you labor voices from the Peoples Climate March .

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SOS, Save Our Planet: The Peoples Climate March and Beyond 
with
Christian Parenti, professor of sustainable development at the 
School for International Training, Graduate Institute. He is a 
contributing editor to the Nation and the author of four books, 
the most recent being Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence 
and
Mary Sweeters, Greenpeace Arctic Campaigner and Coordinator in the Global Climate March. She has spent the last seven years at Greenpeace organizing numerous communities around climate change. She participated in an action hanging a giant banner on Mt. Rushmore to call out Pres. Obama to take action on climate change and especially  to raise awareness of the meltdown of the Arctic ice caps and the dangers of Arctic oil drilling. 

The massive Peoples Climate March is a turning point in the  
demand for an economy that works for people and the planet; a 
world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good 
jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities, we’ll dialogue 
with Christian Parenti and youth activist Mary Sweeters who has 
helped build support for the march and beyond  to incorporate an 
environmental justice agenda in all of our endeavors.  To change 
everything, we need everybody!  

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Hundreds Arrested as Fast Food Workers Strike 
for Living Wage and Unionization
featuring
Jeanina Jenkins - a McDonalds Worker in Ferguson, Mo. who 
joined the NYC protests  and was active in protesting the police 
killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO

Thousands of fast food workers across 150 U.S. cities walked off the job recently and nearly 500 of them willfully committed civil disobedience as part of their protest and were arrested. In NYC 34 fast food workers were arrested. Protesting fast food workers have insisted that they were willing to do “whatever it takes” in order to earn union recognition and a higher wage. The NYC fast-food workers were also joined by over 20 St. Louis area fast-food workers, including many from Ferguson, who were among the first in the country to join the Fight for $15, and have been on strike as 
many as six times. Jeanina Jenkins, a McDonald’s employee in Ferguson, said “I’m willing to do whatever it takes because I’m barely surviving on the $7.97/hr. I make at McDonald’s. After everything that’s happened here in my community during the last month, I know that if I don’t stand up and fight for what I believe in, for what’s right, that nobody else will and nothing will 
ever change.”

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The Death and Life of American Labor:
Toward a New Workers’ Movement
with
Stanley Aronowitz  In the 1950s, Aronowitz was a factory metalworker. In the ’50s and ’60s, he directed organizing with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers. In 1963,he coordinated labor participation for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Ten years later, the publication of his book False Promises: The Shaping of American Working Class Consciousness was a land-mark in the study of the U.S. working-class and workers’ movements.

Union membership in the United States has fallen below 11 percent, the lowest rate since before the New Deal. Labor activist and scholar of the American labor movement Stanley Aronowitz argues that the movement as we have known it for the last 100 years is effectively dead. And he explains how this death has been a long time coming—the organizing and political principles adopted by U.S. unions at mid-century have taken a terrible toll.

In his new book The Death and Life of American Labor, Aronowitz draws on this long personal history, reflecting on his continuing involvement in labor organizing,  with groups such as the Professional Staff Congress of the City University. He brings a historian’s understanding of American workers’ struggles in taking the long view of the labor movement. Then, n a survey of current initiatives, strikes, organizations, and allies, Aronowitz analyzes the possibilities of labor’s rebirth, and sets out a program for a new, broad, radical workers’ movement.

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Feeding New York: 
Food Manufacturing Workers Struggle Against Raw Deal
with 
.  Daniel Gross, Ex. Dir., Brandworkers
.  Richard Merino, Member, Brandworkers
.  Manuel Estevez, Member, Brandworkers

Food production industry workers prepare and deliver food across the city.  With $5 billion in annual sales, New York City’s food manufacturing industry is slated to become a major economic driver in the coming years. Now,a new report, “Feeding New York”details workers' experiences in the city's growing food manufacturing industry, from the perspective of those employed in it. It exposes pervasive wage theft, discrimination, 
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Fast Food Wages? Bad Fruit! 
with 
Rev. William J. Barber, III

As fast food workers rallied, marched and struck all over the country recently, NAACP President William Barber III, joined workers in Raleigh NC to help communicate the message that their low wages, the fruit of their own labor, is bad fruit

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From Ferguson to Staten Island
Building Resistance to Police Terror
withMichael McPhearson, Ex. Dir. of Veterans for Peace,
Carl Dix, co-founder, with Dr. Cornel West of the Stop Mass
Incarceration Network,
Shahid Buttar, Exec. Dir., The Bill of Rights Defense Committee 

Arguably the most significant uprising in many years in this country, in response to the national phenomena of police terrorizing communities of color has been taking place in Ferguson Missouri.  Ferguson residents, despite a virtual military style occupation, by local, state and  federal law enforcement, in the aftermath of the police shooting death of Michael Brown simply won’t back down  even in the face of  military tactics and weapons which are being used to suppress dissent in violation of constitutional rights. 

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Standing Against Israel’s Ongoing War Crimes 
Against the People of Gaza
Speakers Include
Laila El-Haddad, author of Gaza Mom blogger & journalist
Ilan Pappe, historian/activist/author The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Fida Qishta, Film maker, Where Should the Birds Fly?
Ares Mansour, Gaza Journalist 
Josh Ruebner, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, author 
"Shattered Hopes: Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace"

Highlight’s of the World Can’t Wait’s extraordinary event bringing together diverse voices of dissent, with varied perspectives, but all of who are determined  to seek justice for the people of Gaza.  Join us and listen to people across the globe to hear how unjust and intolerable the occupation of Gaza is, and how impossible all that would be were it not backed by the U.S. government.

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NYC Rallies with International Community to Stand with Gaza!

Millions of people have decried Israel’s crimes against humanity and marched in solidarity with the people of Gaza.  In Europe, activists have turned out in 12 countries, including in France, where thousands defied a government ban.  One hundred and fifty thousand were reported to have marched in great Britain.  Tens of thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in the Occupied West Bank in solidarity with their Gaza sisters and brothers.  Inside Israel 5,000 rallied in Tel Aviv, while 700 marched in Haifa and others in Jerusalem. Some 50 Israeli reservists refuse to serve in the military’s invasion of Gaza.  Elsewhere in Asia, demonstrators came out in many countries, and Australians and New Zealanders marched too.  Protests have also occurred throughout Northern Africa and several cities in South Africa, where government expelled the Israeli ambassador and 50,000 marched in Cape Town.  Several Latin American countries have broken diplomatic relations with Israel.  Now in New York we’ve come together with the international community to say we too Stand with Gaza! 

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The Peril for Postal Workers and Post Offices, Why We’re Boycotting Staples and Opening a Window for "Postal Banking” 
with
Mark Dimondstein, Pres. American Postal Workers Union (APWU)

In the battle to save the Post Office and good union jobs,  protests have escalated into a national boycott of Staples for the proposed deal with the Post Office to privatize retail postal services. Internal USPS documents reveal that the Staples deal is an attempt to reduce the cost of “traditional” postal union labor and shift it to low-wage labor. While the Post Office tries to save money by degrading their workers' remuneration, it ignores  a proposal by its own Inspector General - postal banking.  President Dimondstein said "basic, non-profit banking would be a great and real benefit to the people of this country,and a good answer to what I call "the Wall Street Banksters,' who devastated the economy and with it the lives 
of millions of people." 

Plus
Danny Glover Joins the Battle to Save the Post Office

Danny Glover gave an impassioned speech on the final day of the APWU’s Convention, declaring that he would be part of the fight to keep the Postal Service in the hands of the people. As the son of postal workers, Glover described how his parents’ involvement in the union influenced his life, pointing out that they became postal employees shortly after the U.S. armed forces and federal employment were integrated in the midst of a great movement in the country. He said the fight against turning over postal duties to Staples and the campaign to use the USPS “for the many varied services it has the capacity to perform” are important. “We, the 
people, own our post office, And we’re  going to fight for that and we will win.”

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“Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel”
with
Max Blumenthal, journalist, and blogger, formerly a writer for The Daily Beast and Al Akhbar, author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party and the New York Times best-selling Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel  

In Goliath, Max Blumenthal takes us on a journey through Israel-Palestine, painting a startling portrait of Israeli society under the siege of increasingly authoritarian politics as the occupation of the Palestinians deepens.  He tells the story of Israel in the wake of the collapse of the Oslo peace process.Through his far-ranging travels, Blumenthal illuminates the present by uncovering the ghosts of the past—the histories of Palestinian neighborhoods and villages now gone and forgotten and how that history has set the stage for the current crisis.

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Under Siege: A Report from Gaza
with 
Mahmound Abu Rahma, the Communications and International Relations Director at the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights - Gaza

Mahound Abu Rahma recently  wrote "Understanding Israel’s Actions," in which he states: "It is essential that U.S. citizens understand that this conflict should not continue to be viewed as a symmetrical one anymore and while they largely do not hear about it there are vicious violations of international law against Palestinians every day; including closures/blockades, settlement activities (population  transfer on our land) displacement, killings, detention and torture."

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Detroit Cuts Water Service To Thousands Who Can’t Afford To Pay
with
Demeeko Williams, Detroit Water Brigade
and
Tom Stephens, Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management

“This is everybody's fight, water is a human right!” the protesters chanted. In recent weeks, activists in Detroit have mobilized against the city's efforts to cut off the water supply to 120,000 delinquent accounts, or over 300,000 city residents. From June until September, the Detroit Water and Sewage Department(DWSD) will be cutting off citizens' water supply at a rate of 3,000 per week. According to the DWSD, 4,500 households have already been turned off. Further, in the past ten years Detroit residents have seen water rates rise by 119 percent. The city council apporved an 8.7% rate increase just last month. Many believe the rate hikes and  the imminent shut-offs are an attempt by Detroit Emergency Manager Kevin Orr to make the DWSD more appealing to potential investors in a bid to privatize the city's utilities.  As news of the water shut offs spread the United Nations issued a statement last week that said that the city's plan "constitutes a violation of the human right to water."
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Scenes from an Endless Dinner in Detroit Part 1
by Kate Levy 

Levy provides background and analysis of Detroit's bankruptcy crisis by resenting misconceptions about Detroit as well as the logic some local activists bring to the table. 
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What’s At Stake: The Supreme Court Ruled on Two of the Most Important Worker-Rights Cases In it’s History 
with
Nicole Berner, SEIU Associate General Counsel 
and 
Richard Blum, Employment Law Project The Legal Aid Society

Join us and our experts to analyze two of the most significant decisions by the Supreme Court ever regarding workers rights.  The U.S. Supreme Court decided Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, that 
employers can impose their religious beliefs on their workers through their business policies. Hobby Lobby, a for-profit, private, nationwide chain of arts-and-crafts stores, objects to providing 
contraception to its employees as mandated by the Affordable Care Act.  The implications of this case for women’s reproductive rights and its potential for licensing discrimination in the workplace masquerading as freedom of religion are frightening.   And then there’s Harris v. Quinn, a “First Amendment” case involving home-care workers in which the Supreme Court decided that they do not have to pay “fair share” fees to the union who represents them.  This case pitted public employee unions against labors longstanding foe, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which helped bring the case.  This case has been characterized as an attempted kill shot aimed at public-sector unions with serious spill over implications for private sector workers as well.

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U.S. Government's $1.3 Trillion Purchasing Power Could Lift
8 Million Workers Out of Poverty 
with 
Robert Hiltonsmith, Demos Policy Analyst & co-author of new 
Demos report Underwriting Good Jobs

Eight million workers rely on low-wage jobs supported by the federal government’s $1.3 trillion in annual spending according to a new report by the public policy organization Demos . Building on Pres. Obama’s executive order that raised the minimum wage for hundreds of thousands of federally contracted workers, it calls for raising labor standards more broadly. The Good Jobs Executive Order advocated in the report would apply to the entire workforce of federally-supported employers significantly benefiting women and minorities – who make up a large percentage of low-wage workers in the federal purchasing footprint. It advocates for
spending agencies to incorporate higher workforce standards when 
evaluating and awarding federal contracts including collective bargaining rights, living wages and good benefits, compliance with workplace protection laws and other applicable business regulations, and limits on excessive executive compensation. 

Plus
Army of New Rosie the Riveters on Strike in Nation’s Capital
Low-Wage Women Call on President Obama to Allow Collective Bargaining for Federal Contract Workers

Hundreds of low-wage federal contract workers working for fifty companies doing business at federal sites – like the National Zoo, Pentagon and Union Station – walked off their jobs .  Led by an army of working women dressed like Rosie the Riveter, they marched through the Smithsonian National Zoo, where workers are joining the Good Jobs Nation campaign for the first time.  This is the 8th strike by low-wage federal contract workers in the past year.
And 
Progressive Caucus Supports Good Jobs Policy
with
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) 

Representative Ellison said the progressive caucus of the House supports these actions and plans to submit a proposal to the White House that would focus on low-wage workers employed by federal contractors. Ellison said he is unsure of how the President would respond to a proposal for executive action, but the representative pointed to President Obama’s past actions as evidence that he would likely be sympathetic.Ellison underscored that he supported “Good Jobs Policy” as means of significantly reducing gender 
inequality in the workforce.

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