ARLINGTON. Va.—The contractor that manages the Pentagon’s food court is once again being probed by
the Department of Labor over wage-theft allegations. Workers in the Pentagon’s cafeteria, employed by the Seven Hills food-services company, told the U.K. Guardian that department investigators have interviewed them several times, and Good Jobs Nation organizer Connie Linares said they have been asked to testify at a special departmental hearing in November. The department declined to comment, and a Seven Hills lawyer said the company is “in compliance with applicable labor laws.” Seven Hills pays its Pentagon food-service workers $9.57 an hour, less than the $10.10 minimum for federal contractors then-President Barack Obama ordained in an executive order after a strike by contractor employees in 2014. About 150 of those workers won an average of $3,000-$4,000 each in back wages in a 2016 wage-theft case against Seven Hills. “This company deserves to have their contract taken away,” said Linares. “There needs to be punishment because they were stealing from workers who are really poor, making only $8 an hour.” The Trump administration, however, has rolled back some of the raises ordered by Obama. Read more
