Labor Dept. | The Contracting Education Academy

April 10, 2014 By AMK

Privately-financed development project not subject to Davis-Bacon Act, rules U.S. District Court

The Labor Department was wrong to declare a privately financed development project a “public work” that would be subject to higher wages under the Davis-Bacon Act, a federal court ruled Monday in a lawsuit brought against the labor agency by the District of Columbia.

In the ruling, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the “CityCenterDC” development won’t be built or used by the government or the public. While the mixed-use project of condominiums, apartments, offices, hotel, retail stores and some public open spaces will sit on a parcel of land owned by the District of Columbia, it will be entirely privately funded, occupied, and maintained for the duration of the developers’ 99-year leases with the city, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said in her decision.

That contradicts the decision that was made by the Labor Department’s Administrative Review Board, which had determined the project was a “public work” for purposes of the Davis-Bacon Act. That law — enacted during the Great Depression to stop contractors from driving down wages with cheap labor — requires the payment of local prevailing wages to workers on federal construction projects. The Labor Department determines the wages.

Legal experts who’d watched the case had said the Labor Department’s decision could have a significant effect on construction projects if it were to stand.

Keep reading this article at: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/04/01/court-rules-against-labor-department-in-citycenterdc-case

December 31, 2013 By AMK

Study finds federal contracts given to flagrant violators of labor laws

A new congressional report criticizes the federal government for awarding tens of billions of dollars in contracts to companies even though they were found to have violated safety and wage laws and paid millions in penalties. Issued on behalf of the Democratic senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, the report cited examples over the past six years.

For instance, Imperial Sugar had $94.8 million in federal contracts last year, even though it paid $6 million in safety penalties over a 2008 factory explosion in Georgia that killed 14 workers. The report also noted that the federal government had awarded $4.2 billion in contracts to Tyson Foods since 2000, even though Tyson has faced more than $500,000 in safety penalties since 2007 and 11 of its workers have died on the job since 1999.

The report urges the government to weigh a company’s safety and wage violations more closely as it awards contracts, which are about $500 billion a year to companies employing 26 million workers, representing 22 percent of the nation’s work force. It stops short of recommending automatic suspension of contracts or debarring contractors that were found to have violated federal laws, partly because government agencies were sometimes at fault, a committee staff member said.

“Taxpayer dollars are routinely being paid to companies that are putting the livelihoods and the lives of workers at risk,” the report said. “Many of the most flagrant violators of federal workplace safety and wage laws are also recipients of large federal contracts.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/11/business/study-finds-federal-contracts-given-to-flagrant-violators-of-labor-laws.html

April 15, 2013 By AMK

Virginia contractor sends WARN Act layoff notices

A Reston, Va.-based government contractor sent employees notices of potential layoffs due to across-the-board budget cuts from sequestration,The Washington Post reported.

Serco Inc. sent out Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notices to 770 employees in Maryland and Virginia. Candy Curtin, the company’s senior vice president for human resources, told the Post Serco was “advised by an attorney” that the notices would be the “best course of action.”

A spokesman for Serco told Government Executive that the “notices were sent out only as a possibility of what may happen due to sequestration,” and that so far “nothing has happened “ to Washington, D.C., area contracts that would necessitate layoffs.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2013/04/virginia-contractor-sends-warn-act-layoff-notices/62347/?oref=govexec_today_nl

October 3, 2012 By AMK

Sequestration memo sets stage of allowable costs

In its latest guidance, the White House has set the parameters under which it will let contractors bill the government for the cost of layoffs and contract changes caused by sequestration, if it occurs.

The Sept. 28 memo also reiterates the Labor Department’s position that potential for sequestration does not trigger the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act, that requires companies to give 60 days of notice before a layoff.

The White House said that contractors can bill the government for costs under two circumstances.

1. If sequestration occurs, and it causes a company to lay off workers or close a plant.

2. The contractor has followed Labor Department guidance on sequestration, and has competition costs for WARN Act liability as “determined by a court as well as attorney fees and other litigation costs.”

Keep reading this article at: http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/10/01/sequestration-memo.aspx

September 6, 2012 By AMK

Sequestration would cost civilian agencies $39 billion, contractor group says

Nondefense agencies would be hit with $39 billion in top-line budget cuts if the current law’s threat of sequestration kicks in on Jan. 2, 2013, according to new calculations by the Professional Services Council, a contractors trade group.

Though Congress and the White House could still reach a budget deal and head off the 2011 Budget Control Act’s requirement of across-the-board reductions, industry groups have been sounding the alarm about the short- and long-term harm the indiscriminate cuts would impose — particularly in defense.

In a pivot to the civilian agency side, the council recently analyzed sequestration’s likely impact on 16 nondefense agencies for fiscal 2013. It assumed that Congress will pass a six-month continuing resolution, as expected, and that fiscal 2012 enacted levels form the basis for applying the cuts.

Keep eading this article at http://www.govexec.com/management/2012/08/sequestration-would-cost-civilian-agencies-39-billion-contractor-group-says/57816/?oref=management_agenda_nl

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