It is the inaugural National Apprenticeship Week (“NAW”), so let’s review the events this week at DOL.
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 MoreThe Trump Administration -- whether due to incompetence, malfeasance, ideological opposition, or plain obstinate refusal to obey the rule of law -- has failed to publish new 2026 civil money penalties (“CMPs”) for the wage and hour laws which were required to be issued by January 15th.
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 MoreIs roll call time compensable working time and included in the overtime calculation? The answer is ordinarily yes, and particularly so if you define it as working time in your CBA. Maybe there is an exemption you can fall in, but you have to meet the requirements of the exemption to avoid coverage.
Read MoreThe legal bots are coming for my job. Last year some crawler pored over my 200+ wage and hour blogs at www.awrcounsel.com and devoured them into some large language model/library of knowledge. I am the instrument of my own destruction! As the saying goes, most of us contain the seeds of our own destruction.
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 MoreDOL completed part of its deregulatory efforts yesterday when it fully revoked the regulations issued by former President Biden’s Administration on so-called nondisplacement of workers. The new DOL action involved the rescission of regulations published by the previous administration in 2023 requiring contractors and subcontractors to give qualified employees the right of first refusal of employment with a successor contract.
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 MoreEmergency pay is not one of the items excluded from the regular rate of pay and, therefore, as DOL opined, it must be included in the overtime formula and thus acts to boost up the amount of overtime premium pay due the worker.
Read MoreThe Wage and Hour Division recently opined that a restaurant can claim a tip credit for oyster shuckers who work “front-of-house” at an oyster bar because they are among the kinds of employees who regularly and customarily receive tips.
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.
Read More“Freddy’s back!” Is it an nightmare on Elm Street? Once again DOL has instituted a PAID program for voluntary self-audit and payment of FLSA and FMLA errors. But think carefully before you dive in.
Read MoreThis back-to-basics blog just touches on a few of the many possible issues that come up under the SCA section 4(c) successor contractor rule. That rule can require successor contractor to pay not less than the wages and fringes set forth in the predecessor’s collective bargaining agreement. It is a very complex area of the law, and it is one place where the engagement of competent SCA counsel may aid in dealing with disputes.
Read MoreDOL is issuing so-called non-standard Service Contract Act (“SCA”) wage determinations (“WDs”) using a numbering scheme which deceives contractors and results in inadvertent violations of the rules regarding furnishing of health & welfare (“H&W”) benefits.
Read MoreAre workers who perform testing, adjusting and balancing (“TAB “) work on heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (“HVAC”) systems “laborers or mechanics” to whom Davis-Bacon requirements may be applicable? Under what circumstances is TAB work on HVAC systems part of the construction, alteration, and/or repair on a DBA-covered project, and hence subject to DBA labor standards?
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