The Washington Post - Bill would Exempt Seasonal Outdoor Staff from Order Raising Wage for Federal Contractors

News Article

The movement to secure a decent living for the working poor has scored impressive victories in recent years, notably President Obama's 2014 executive order mandating a $10.10 minimum wage for workers on federal construction and service contracts.

Now Executive Order 13658, which applies to contracts issued on or after Jan. 1 this year, is under fire from outdoor recreation companies that hire seasonal employees to run tours on federal lands. They want those workers excluded from the order.

If legislation to do that is successful, advocates for the higher wage fear it would be followed by other actions to undermine the executive order, keeping more federal contractor employees in low-paying positions. But if the guides and outfitters are not exempted, the bill's proponents say the mandated wage could run some of those companies to ground.

The Labor Department decided not to regulate an exemption for outfitters. Michael A. Lazzeri, an assistant administrator in the department, told a hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on the Interior last week that the executive order can lead to "reduced absenteeism and turnover in the workplace, improved employee morale and productivity, reduced supervisory costs, and increased quality of services provided to the federal government and the general public, which in turn would draw an increased number of customers and generate higher sales."

This is the latest round in the long standing dispute between Democrats, who generally favor increasing the minimum wage, and Republicans, who say doing so would hurt business. This time the political disagreement is being played on the small stage of a House subcommittee, but the stakes are high. The debate invokes heady topics like the nation's wealth gap and Uncle Sam's desire to be a model employer, even for his contractors.

Despite the bill's limited reach, weakening the executive order for one category of workers could open the door to consequences for federal contractor employees well beyond the white water rapids where some of the firms operate.

"All workers under federal contract should earn a living wage, and no one should be carved out because of a special interest," said Paco Fabian, spokesperson for Good Jobs Nation, a campaign to boost the minimum wage supported by Change to Win and other community and faith organizations. "[The legislation] is a step in the wrong direction and could lead to a death by a thousand cuts for the spirit of the Executive Order."

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), said in an interview that "it certainly is not our intention" to seek exemptions beyond those listed in his bill. Those include services related rafting, boating, zip lines, camping, horseback riding, bicycling, hiking, hunting, fishing and skiing on federal lands by private operators.

Without an exemption, the $10.10 wage would be "a big hit to our bottom line," Brian Merrill, chief executive of Western River Expeditions in Salt Lake City, said by phone. His company runs trips on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. The executive order, he added, would cause his company to make a "choice between altering the quality of the trip or raising the price of it."

Stewart pushed his bill at a House Oversight and Government Reform interior subcommittee hearing last week. He argued then that the executive order covers outdoor recreation companies whose "only connection to the federal government is a permit to operate on federal lands. That permit is a pretty tenuous link."

The hearing was a largely one-sided affair, with Stewart and two industry representatives testifying along with a Labor Department official. No employees who would benefit from the executive order were included. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), the subcommittee chairwoman, made the direction of the hearing clear in her opening statement: "We're here to discuss the impact of how this order and its implementation will negatively impact seasonal rural businesses."

That's just what they heard.

"Implementation of Executive Order 13658 would shut down many summer programs for youth unless they were eligible for an exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act as it would be impossible to meet the payroll requirements of camp counselors, who must be on call 24 hours a day for multi- week employment periods," J. Michael Cottingham, who operates Wilderness Adventures in Jackson Hole, Wyo., told the panel.

Stewart argued "Congress already recognized how these circumstances applied to a similar industry almost 40 years ago when it exempted ski businesses operating on public lands from the Fair Labor Standards Act."

But Rep. Brenda Lawrence (Mich.), the top Democrat on the subcommittee, places the bill in a larger context.

"There is absolutely no justification for separating the outdoors industries from any others who contract to conduct business on federal lands," she told the Federal Diary. "Not only will H.R. 2215 [the number assigned to Stewart's bill] result in wage stagnation for some, it will create an unequal playing field for others who also work for federal contractors on the same federal lands.

"The gap between the richest and poorest Americans has steadily widened over the past decade. Now is not the time to pass legislation that will set struggling workers even further back by exempting certain businesses from the Executive Order's minimum wage."

Source