President Obama signs the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order in Washington on July 31, 2014. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News)

’Tis the season to be jolly.

But not for everyone.

Happiness is a lot easier for those paid a fair wage, which apparently is not what many federal contractor employees get.

In a complaint filed Monday with the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said the Lionel Henderson Corp. “has misclassified and underpays workers” who are customer service representatives for the National Flood Insurance Program.

It’s called “wage theft” and Henderson is not alone as an alleged wage thief.

• A Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation in 2010 said “the federal government has awarded contracts to companies that had been cited for large back-wage liabilities by Labor.”
• A report released Monday by Demos, a public policy organization based in New York, said “approximately 40 percent of all federal contracting dollars in 2013 went to contractors with health, safety or wage violations on their record” and “Americans working for federal contractors lose up to $2.5 billion each year to violations of minimum wage laws alone.”
• Good Jobs Nation, a campaign on behalf of low-wage federal contract workers that is supported by community and labor organizations, says it has recovered $5 million in back wages for 1,500 federal contract workers over the last three years.

President Obama has taken action to protect contract workers, but his efforts are under attack.

A federal judge in Texas blocked his 2014 “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” executive order that allows agencies to bar federal contractors with workplace violations. Another executive order raised the hourly minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10.10. In September, the administration announced that federal contractors must offer paid sick leave to employees.

The future for these actions is unknown under President-elect Donald Trump. During his first 100 days in the White House, he has promised to “cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama.” It remains to be seen if Trump will play Scrooge and reverse these directives. Even with them in place, times have been tough for many low-income contractors.

Just thinking about this holiday season brings LaToya Williams to tears.