WASHINGTON (AP) — Lacking congressional backing to raise
wages or end gender pay disparities, President Barack Obama is imposing
his policies directly on federal contractors, following a
long-established tradition of presidents exerting their powers on a
fraction of the economy directly under their control.
This week,
the president will sign an executive order that would prohibit federal
contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their pay
with each other. The prohibition on the wage "gag rules" is similar to
language in a Senate bill aimed at closing a pay gap between men and
women. That legislation is scheduled for a vote this week, though it is
not likely to pass.
In addition, Obama on Tuesday will direct the
Labor Department to adopt regulations requiring federal contractors to
provide compensation data based on sex and race. The president will sign
the executive order and the presidential memo during an event at the
White House where he will be joined Lilly Ledbetter, whose name appears
on a pay discrimination law Obama signed in 2009.
This week’s
steps showcase Obama’s efforts to take action without congressional
approval and illustrate how even without legislation, the president can
drive policy on a significant segment of the U.S. economy. At the same
time, it also underscores the limits of his ambition when he doesn’t
have the backing of Congress for his initiatives.
Republicans
maintain that Obama is pushing his executive powers too far and that he
should do more to work with Congress. His new executive orders are sure
to prompt criticism that he is placing an undue burden on companies and
increasing their costs.
Federal contracting covers about
one-quarter of the U.S. workforce and includes companies ranging from
Boeing to small parts suppliers and service providers. As a result,
presidential directives can have a wide and direct impact. Such actions
also can be largely symbolic, designed to spur action in the broader
economy.
"This really is about giving people access to more
information both to help them make decisions at the policy level but
also for individuals," said Heather Boushey, executive director and
chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth who has
been working with the administration to get compensation information
about the nation’s workforce.
"This is definitely an encouraging first step," she said.
Federal
contractors, however, worry that additional compensation data could be
used to fuel wage related lawsuits, said James Plunkett, director of
labor policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
What’s more, he
said, such orders create a two-tiered system where rules apply to
federal contractors but not to other employers. Those contractors,
knowing that their business relies on the government, are less likely to
put up a fight, he said.
"Federal contractors ultimately know that they have to play nicely to a certain extent with the
federal government," he said.
Separately,
on Monday, Obama will also announce the 24 schools that will share in
more than $100 million in grants to redesign their schools to better
prepare high school students for college or for careers. The awards are
part of an executive order Obama signed last year. Money for the program
comes from fees that companies pay for visas to hire foreign workers
for specialized jobs.
The moves represent a return to economic
issues for the president after two weeks devoted almost exclusively to
diplomacy and the final deadline for health insurance coverage. A trip
to Asia in two weeks is sure to change the focus once again.
Still, Obama has declared this a year of action, whether Congress supports him or not.
In
February, Obama signed an executive order increasing the hourly minimum
wage for federal contractors from $7.25 per to $10.10. While White
House officials estimated such an increase would affect only 100,000
people, they said the move could encourage states or individual
businesses to act on their own to increase workers’ wages.
The
Gap, the clothing retailer, announced in February that it would set the
minimum wage for workers at $9 an hour this year and $10 an hour in
2015. And since Obama first called for a minimum wage increase in his
State of the Union address in 2013, seven states and the District of
Columbia have increased their wage requirements.
Obama’s
go-it-alone strategy is hardly new. The most enduring workplace
anti-discrimination laws began with an executive order signed by
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in June 25, 1941, outlawing
discrimination based on race, color, creed and national origin in the
federal government and defense industries.
President John F.
Kennedy broadened that in 1961 with an order that required government
contractors to take affirmative action to ensure hiring "without regard
to their race, creed, color or national origin."
President George
W. Bush ordered federal contractors to ensure that their workers were in
the country legally by requiring the use of an electronic
employment-verification system.
Jeffrey Hirsch, a former lawyer
with the National Labor Relations Board, said presidential executive
orders that affect federal contracting workforces can over time
demonstrate that those practices are less onerous than initially
imagined. Still, he said, presidents don’t often undertake such
executive action unless some political support already exists.
"But
it’s an important step in implementing things in a broader scale," said
Hirsch, now a professor at the University of North Carolina School of
Law.
By employing such executive actions, however, Obama has also drawn attention to areas where he has chosen
not to act on his own.
The
White House has resisted pressure from gay rights advocates who want
have Obama to sign an anti-discrimination executive order that would
protect gays and lesbians working for federal contractors. The White
House wants the House to approve a Senate-passed bill extending those
protections to all Americans.
On Friday, the Human Rights
Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group, criticized the White
House for saying such an executive order would be redundant if Congress
were to pass a White House-supported bill. It’s an argument the White
House has not made when it comes to minimum wage or anti-gag rule orders
imposed on federal contractors.
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