Withholding of money is an enforcement tool given to DOL. It is intended to serve the important remedial purposes of the prevailing wage laws. But it is a blunt instrument and can be used abusively and in violation of due process rights. DOL needs to curb those abuses. Withholding is becoming all too often routine and a means to secure the outcome DOL wants regardless of the merits.
Read MoreThe CBCA is now on record again that, same as the situation under the SCA, when a new EO sick leave benefit requirement is added to an existing contract, that constitutes a change to the contract and entitles the contractor to a full equitable adjustment in the contract price. The presence of an EPA clause does not alter that “straightforward and uncontroversial conclusion.”
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I always thought the lawyer rating business was a scam mostly directed at lawyers.
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Here is a follow up to a blog I wrote last month. I am puzzled why the Wage & Hour Division (“WHD”) would ever think it proper to withhold money from the prime contractor where the SCA clauses or wage determinations were originally left out of the government contract. One of the WHD duties is to not withhold money from the contractor for issues which relate to changes in the contract which were ordered by the Government. That is a breach of contract. Instead, This adjustment must be paid for by the procuring agency, and that means funding the change order and paying for the cost of the increased wages and benefits arising from the correction of the Government’s own errors.
Read MoreWhen a Service Contract Act (“SCA”) wage determination (“WD”) is omitted from a covered Government service contract and then added into the contract after award, that triggers a right to a price adjustment under the Changes clause, which adjustment includes overhead, G&A and profit.
Read MoreFor many government contractors, benefit plans are the more cost‑effective, employee friendly, and compliant solution. But the ultimate decision is a business judgment, and there are circumstances where it is easier to pay the cash fringes.
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New Service Contract Act (“SCA”) health and welfare (“H&W’) rates for 2026 - 2027 have supposedly been determined but I cannot find any public official DOL announcement.
Read MoreThe misbegotten Biden-era attempt to apply the Davis-Bacon Act (“DBA”) by operation of law to contracts that omit the clauses and wage determinations is likely to soon be completely dead. And if you are a trucker or materialman business bringing goods to a DBA covered work site, you are now less likely to be caught up regulatory web and covered by the DBA.
Read MoreIt has been a long 41-year largely continuous run, but I have decided to hang my instructor gig up in 2026. Tomorrow, I will teach my last virtual seminar for Federal Publications. And this summer I will teach my last in-person live session. All things must pass. Here is a thank you to all my students.
Read MoreSlotting and conformance are two distinct processes under the SCA and DBA used by both DOL and contractors to determine appropriate wage rates for employees when the provided WD does not explicitly list a specific job title. Slotting is the process of mapping a job to an existing, similar classification found in the WD based on comparable duties and skills. Conformance is a formal process used when no suitable classification exists in the WD, requiring the creation of a new, approved labor category and rate..
Read MoreAn employee who was tasked by the company CEO to audit the company’s SCA compliance, who found that the company was not compliant, and who allegedly was fired after repeatedly rebuking the CEO for the allegedly knowing noncompliance, could not bring a qui tam action, because conducting the audit became part of his normal duties once the CEO instructed him to conduct it. See U.S. ex rel. Irizarry v. Innovative Technologies, Inc., 2025 WL 2298711 (D.D.C. 2025).
Read MoreAround age 65 the American Bar Association (“ABA”) automatically enrolls you in the so-called Senior Law Section. They also send you a magazine with all kinds of articles with headings urging you to “Stop Practicing Law You Fool Before You Malpractice or Get Sick.”
Read MoreCount me as one who hates change. I find the so-called “Revolutionary FAR Overhaul to be unnecessary, confusing, and likely to lead to more not less procurement disputes.
Read MoreA client asked me to write a step-by-step guide to Davis-Bacon Act (“DBA”) conformances. A conformance is the process for setting a prevailing wage and fringe benefit standard for job positions missing from a wage determination. This blog is meant for practitioners and contractors who must deal with conformances. It is an a summary adapted from my prior work product.
Read MoreIt is the last day of an eventful year. I thought I would try my hand at predicting what happens in the government contract world in 2026.
Read MoreIn the usual course of events, any SCA price adjustment proposed must be grounded in the contractor’s actual incurred costs, not the costs the contractor proposed that it would incur when it agreed to the contract.
Read MoreI have looked at the FAR Part 22 labor and employment provision changes in the proposed Revolutionary FAR Overhaul. To my eyes they don’t seem so “revolutionary.” Mostly, what they do is move the interpretive regulations to the new FAR Companion or other resources. That may reduce their importance. And that may make it easier to evade compliance. But that isn’t likely to change much for the prevailing wage field since the FAR regulations were simply a restatement of the Department of Labor’s (“DOL’s”) Part 4 and 5 regulations found in 29 Code of Federal Regulation. Those DOL regulations have been around for a long time. Taking provisions out of the regulatory book (yet leaving DOL’s regulatory scheme in place) and leaving existing statutory provisions on the books, does NOT constitute a “revolution.”
Read MoreDue to the shutdown, furlough, and perhaps policy confusion, DOL has yet to announce the new federal Contractor Minimum Wage to be effective January 1, 2026.
Read MoreI’ve been on the lookout for what the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul would do to FAR Part 22 that governs the application of federal labor laws to government contracts. As it turns out, the overhauled Part 22 mostly reorganizes, but doesn’t rewrite, the regulations. That said, the interim “new 22” could spawn confusion during the transition to final new 22.
Read MoreGovernment service contractors need to exercise restraint and avoid bidding on work involving unionized contractors with insolvent union pension plans. They are a trap for the unwary.
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