The Contractor Scofflaws

[babylonsister]

The Contractor Scofflaws
By William Greider

This article appeared in the March 22, 2010 edition of The Nation.


As Washington focuses on Barack Obama's other troubles, the president is on the brink of committing a significant good deed for working people and taxpayers. He intends to change the rules for a very privileged business sector--the scofflaw federal contractors who live off public money yet routinely flout laws and social standards. They do so by abusing their workers and violating wage-and-hour laws, trashing environmental standards, failing to pay their federal taxes--cheating their best customer, the government, in obvious ways.

Punishing federal contractors may sound like inside baseball, but it speaks to the larger outrages in government and private enterprise. POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, has kept score on contractor misconduct for many years and campaigned for serious reform. Some very big names--and huge sums of money--are involved. Military contractor Lockheed Martin tops POGO's list of "worst 100 contractors," with $34.2 billion in government business and a record of fifty instances of civil, criminal and administrative misconduct. ExxonMobil, General Electric, Boeing, Honeywell and others are close behind.

Government tolerates the misbehavior and looks the other way. The worst that might happen is a trivial fine. Confronting companies with the risk of losing federal contracts because of their misconduct has real potential, beyond the arms manufacturers. Over time, it could alter the pattern of destructive corporate behavior across many sectors. The construction industry is notorious for violating workers' rights and labor laws. So are the firms that manage vast federal real estate and exploit the underpaid workers who clean office buildings. That's why the service workers union, SEIU, joined POGO and other reform groups like the Center for American Progress to push the issue.

Banking is also vulnerable because it needs federal approval to hold the vast deposits of the government--trillions in cash flow from taxation and spending programs. (Years ago, when banks were first told to obey equal opportunity requirements, the sudden increase in black tellers was remarkable.) Universities are major federal contractors too. The University of California is on POGO's worst 100 list, with twenty-five instances of misconduct. So is the University of Chicago.

Obama's serious intentions are confirmed by the fierce lobbying opposition mounted by industry front groups (a battle first reported by Steven Greenhouse in the New York Times). The White House is preparing a new set of procurement regulations that will require government agencies to push back against contractor misconduct in two ways.


more...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/greider

[donco6]

1. I really hope so.

And that's all I'll say.

[DCKit]

2. What they did to ACORN, 'cept for good reason this time. n/t

[Cha]

3. Thank you, President Obama

& TEAM!