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US House Defends Davis-Bacon Act

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Washington, D.C. (July 14, 2017)

Terry O’Sullivan, General President of LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – made the following statement today on the U.S. House of Representatives’ vote to reject the Gosar Amendment to H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2018:

The U.S. House of Representatives decisively rejected an attack on the Davis-Bacon Act with 51 Republican members and all Democratic members voting to defeat the Gosar Amendment.

Representative Paul Gosar’s (R-AZ) amendment would have slashed the wages and benefits for Department of Defense construction projects by manipulating the calculation standard applied under the Davis-Bacon Act; adopting a new standard that would amount to massive cuts to paychecks and benefits.

The Davis-Bacon Act has kept public investment from undermining local wage and benefit standards for decades and Congress has consistently demonstrated their support for the act by rejecting attempts to weaken the Davis-Bacon Act.

LIUNA commends the U.S. House for their bi-partisan resolve in rejecting this cowardly attack on the livelihoods of working men and women.

(Visit LIUNA’s website)

bill-would-allow-cities-counties-to-opt-out-of-prevailing-wage

Prevailing wage, project labor agreements protect living standards for construction workers

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By ROBBIE HUNTER
July 6, 2017 at 12:01 am

In an era of political hyperventilation, it might be a good idea for some critics to take a deep breath before they launch into their attacks on the prevailing wage laws and project labor agreements that protect the living standards of construction workers in California and across the nation.

From Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, anti-union writers in recent weeks have incorrectly branded the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act that wrote the prevailing wage into the law on taxpayer-funded construction projects as born of racism and a rip-off of public funds. The same critics also have falsely characterized project labor agreements as costly to taxpayers and unfair to nonunion construction companies.

Now, for the facts.

Two Republican congressmen, Sen. James Davis of Pennsylvania and U.S. Rep. Roger Bacon of New York, sponsored their legislation 86 years ago to establish a minimum wage on taxpayer-funded construction projects, based on local measures of central tendency in any of the covered construction trades.

The idea behind the prevailing wage is to keep unscrupulous operators from low-bidding the legitimate competition to the detriment of the local workforce. The effect has been to allow blue-collar workers – 400,000 of whom are represented by the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California – to maintain their place in the American middle class.

Of the false charges that have been lodged of late about Davis-Bacon, perhaps the most repugnant is the smear that recirculates every so often that the act originated as an outgrowth of racism. The critics troll through the historic record to quote some congressmen in the debate over Davis-Bacon who supported the law based on their own warped view that it was designed to protect higher-paid white workers in the northeast represented by the authors of the law from “cheap colored labor” that would be imported to their districts from the South. The critics fail, however, to report Congressman Bacon’s reply that imported workers came in white skin as well as black.

(Read More)

Linking Public Works to Local Hiring Faces a Trump Challenge

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By PATRICIA COHEN
AUG. 3, 2017

…

Over the last decade, more and more cities, on the coasts and in the heartland, have tried to leverage their buying power to fuel economic development through local hiring provisions on public projects that favor veterans, residents and low-income workers. But these efforts have been bedeviled by political, economic and legal challenges that have divided business, union and political allies.

Now the Trump administration may rescind an Obama-era initiative that allows hiring preferences on transportation and construction projects in states like New York, California, Texas, Virginia and Illinois, a prospect that has alarmed advocates of such programs.

“Why not let cities and states innovate to create the good American jobs that the administration has been clamoring for?” said Madeline Janis, the executive director of Jobs to Move America, a coalition of faith, labor and other groups that want transportation funding to benefit local communities. “I don’t understand why they would want to cancel the program.”

Legal and regulatory hurdles have long frustrated officials trying to create job opportunities that favor local residents. The Supreme Court has ruled it is unconstitutional for employers in one state to discriminate against residents of another. Federal agencies, through Republican and Democratic administrations, have maintained that restrictions like competitive bidding prevent them from contributing a cent to public projects with hiring preferences. And state lawmakers, complaining that employers and workers outside the target city are at a disadvantage, have outlawed such preferences.

Jobs to Move America was one of several groups that spent years working with transportation officials in the Obama administration on a pilot project to test whether local hiring preferences reduced competition or drove up prices. In January, days before President Trump was sworn in, the Transportation Department extended the experiment, taking place in more than a dozen cities, for five years so that research could be completed.

(Read More)

Labor Department delays full Fiduciary Rule for additional 18 months

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

08/10/2017
By Mark Huffman

The Labor Department has served notice that it intends to delay full implementation of the Fiduciary Rule until July 2019.

The government revealed the delay in a brief filed in a court in Minnesota, where it is a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Thrivent Financial. Previously, the Trump Administration had said it would delay key provisions of the Obama Administration rule until January 2018.

The Fiduciary Rule requires financial advisors to always place the client’s interests ahead of their own. While that might sound fairly straightforward, the financial services industry has resisted that.

One argument is that advisors who make no commissions from the investments their clients make would have to charge so much for their advice that only wealthy investors could afford their services. However, some experts say that delaying the rule further will only make it easier for firms to stall their implentation efforts.

“We have consistently opposed any additional delay, which will only serve to increase uncertainty over the rule’s ultimate fate,” Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at Consumer Federation of America, told ConsumerAffairs.

(Read More)

DeLauro Introduces Bill to Stop Wage Theft, Boost Workers’ Financial Security

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

August 7, 2017
Press Release

WASHINGTON, DC (August 7, 2017) – Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), along with U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Al Franken (D-MN), and Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03), introduced the Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act to crack down on employers who unfairly withhold wages from their employees. This bill would give workers the right to receive full compensation for all of the work they perform, as well as the right to receive regular paystubs and final paychecks in a timely manner. It would also provide workers with improved tools to recover their stolen wages in court and make assistance available to build community partnerships that enhance the enforcement of and improve compliance with wage and hour laws.

“The biggest economic challenge facing our country is that too many people are in jobs that do not pay them enough to live on. Across the country, some workers are putting in long hours and working for an honest day’s pay, only to have their employers cheat them out of their hard-earned wages. Wage theft is inexcusable and unconscionable, and our federal laws should hold employers who violate their employee’s right accountable,” said Congresswoman DeLauro. “The Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act is comprehensive legislation that will strengthen current federal law and empower employees to recover their lost wages. Whether it is compensation for a day’s work, or overtime, employees should be paid what they earn. This legislation not only protects workers, but it will help our economy grow.”

In May, the Economic Policy Institute published a new report finding that employers steal more than an estimated $15 billion from workers each year, with workers in low-wage industries at the greatest risk. A National Employment Law Project 2008 survey of 4,387 low-wage workers in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago found that low-wage workers experienced a range of wage and hour violations, with women, immigrants and minorities being disproportionately affected. Common examples of wage theft include forcing workers to work off the clock, refusing to pay the minimum wage, denying overtime pay to workers even after they work more than 40 hours a week, stealing workers’ tips, or knowingly misclassifying workers to avoid paying fair wages.

(Read More)

The Answer to America’s Skilled Labor Problem

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Katherine S Newman, Hella Winston
Jul 24, 2017

Very few policy ideas excite both parties in this period of political polarization. Apprenticeship and the renaissance of technical education is, however, one of them. The Obama administration invested millions to launch a federal apprenticeship office, while President Trump has made it one of his signature ideas as he tries to address the re-industrialization of economically depressed regions of the country.

Twin goals are at play on the right and the left: the revival of manufacturing industries, which are desperate for skilled labor, and the need to develop pathways to good jobs-especially for non-university-bound youth-that technical high schools, community colleges, and training programs have been trying to forge. Virtually everyone in the policy world accepts that we must do more to move the American labor force toward the kind of high-skilled foundation that is common in Germany and Austria.

Despite this consensus, the U.S. is very far behind in expanding apprenticeship and the technical education that underpins it. We currently have 506,000 federally registered apprentices and have allocated $2.7 billion dollars to support them. In Germany, with an economy one quarter the size of the U.S., there are 1.4 million apprentices and the annual expenditure for them is $9 billion. The skill of the German labor force is unparalleled in the world and has helped that country become a dominant force in international trade. Its investment has paid off handsomely.

(Read More)

Lies surrounding Davis Bacon compliance land concrete contractor jail time

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

WHD News Release: 07/27/2017
Release Number: 17-1028-SAN

PORTLAND, Ore. – The owner of an Oregon concrete company that contracted with the federal government recently started a two-month prison sentence for lying to federal investigators. The crime occurred when he told U.S. Department of Labor officials that he had paid employees more than $93,000 in back wages that the Department’s Wage and Hour Division found the company owed its workers following a 2014 investigation.

The Department’s investigation revealed that Westwind Concrete had failed to pay the proper prevailing wage rates on a project in Tualatin in violation of the Davis Bacon and Related Acts, which applied because the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development financed the project. Westwind Concrete is based in Cloverdale.

Westwind owner Jeffery Hurliman assured the division that he would pay more than $93,000 in back wages he owed to 27 workers and later provided certifications that he claimed were from his employees attesting to having received back wages.

The Department’s Office of Inspector General investigated Hurliman after officials in the division’s Portland office noted discrepancies on the proofs of payment. The investigation revealed that the certifications were falsified and that when Hurliman learned about the investigation, he offered money to employees to lie to investigators.

The Department’s findings led to federal criminal prosecution against Hurliman and a two-month prison sentence. Hurliman agreed to a deal in January 2017 in which he pleaded guilty to witness tampering and providing false statements to the government, both felonies, and began his sentence on June 15, 2017. He will be on supervised release for three years following his release from prison on Aug. 15, 2017. In the meantime, the department has sued to prevent him from obtaining future government contracts.

(Read More)

2017 SCA Health & Welfare Fringe Benefit Increase

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Wage and Hour Division (WHD)

The McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act requires contractors and subcontractors performing services on prime contracts in excess of $2,500 to pay service employees in various classes no less than the wage rates and fringe benefits found prevailing in the locality, or the rates (including prospective increases) contained in a predecessor contractor’s collective bargaining agreement. The Department of Labor issues wage determinations on a contract-by-contract basis in response to specific requests from contracting agencies. These determinations are incorporated into the contract.

The health and welfare fringe benefit is one of the required SCA fringe benefits. Effective August 1, 2017, the prevailing health and welfare fringe benefits issued under the SCA will increase to a rate of $4.41 per hour.

Executive Order 13706, Establishing Paid Sick Leave for Federal Contractors (EO 13706), requires certain employers that contract with the federal government to provide their employees with up to 56 hours (seven days) of paid sick leave annually, including for family care and absences resulting from domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. EO 13706 applies to new contracts with the federal government that result from solicitations issued on or after January 1, 2017 (or that are awarded outside the solicitation process on or after January 1, 2017).

To comply with EO 13706, an alternate health and welfare rate has been established that excludes the sick leave portion of the calculated health and welfare rate. The SCA health and welfare fringe benefits level for employees performing on contracts covered by EO 13706 will be $4.13 per hour.

(Dol.gov- SCA Home Page)

Why You Should Care About Compliance

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Forbes.com
POST WRITTEN BY Gene Zaino
JUL 27, 2017 @ 08:00 AM

As the on-demand economy grows, independent professionals are becoming a larger and more essential part of the workforce. The number of self-employed Americans rose to nearly 41 million in 2017 and is predicted to rise to 47.6 million in just five years. This shift away from traditional employment allows independents to work on their own terms while organizations that engage them fill skills shortage gaps, gain staffing flexibility, and realize lower costs.

Coupled with this growth, however, we’ve seen an increase in federal and state government efforts to combat employees being misclassified as independent contractors. In June, the Department of Labor (DOL) removed the Obama-era guidance about joint employment and independent contractors. While it has been widely reported that this withdrawal does not change the legal responsibilities of employers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), it may indicate that the current administration is taking a more traditional view of employment relationships, as opposed to past interpretation of these documents that assumed most workers were employees.

We’ve seen the results of these actions in the increase in class-action lawsuits, such as Citigroup’s $325,000 settlement for misclassification of technology workers, Zenefits’ $3.4 million payment to misclassified employees for unpaid overtime, and FedEx’s $228 million settlement for misclassification of delivery drivers.
Lawsuits like these are just one of many very real consequences of misclassification, but avoiding a misclassification suit isn’t the only reason to care about how one should engage independent talent.

Here are three reasons compliance should be top of mind for all organizations that engage independent professionals.

Compliance Aids In Proper Classification

Classification of independent contractors is not a clear-cut process. Federal, state and local government agencies use a variety of tests to determine whether or not a worker is a true independent contractor.

Just because independent contractors call themselves an independent contractor doesn’t mean they are one in the eyes of the law. Independents come from various backgrounds and experience levels and have different levels of self-employability. When engaging independent talent, it’s up to organizations to make a final determination of classification, but because tests vary from agency to agency and because regulations are constantly changing, these decisions can be complex.

(Read More)

Labor Secretary to Start Building Apprenticeship Task Force

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Jul 25, 2017
Thomasnet.com

The U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta has opened up nominations for the Task Force on Apprenticeship Expansion. According to a recent news release from the Department of Labor, creating the task force is the first step in implementing President Donald Trump’s executive order to expand apprenticeships.

In June, President Trump said that apprenticeships could help fill millions of open jobs, however he was reticent to dedicate additional taxpayer money to the program.
According to the Department of Labor (DoL), the current number of active apprenticeships in the United States is 505,371.

In March, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff challenged the president to create five million apprenticeships over the next five years. President Trump accepted the challenge, and his proposed budget includes a $5 million increase ($95 million overall) in spending appropriated for apprenticeships.

Secretary Acosta will chair the task force, which has been charged with identifying ways to promote apprenticeships, particularly in sectors where apprenticeship programs are currently insufficient.

The task force will create a final report for President Trump that will include:
  • Recommendations on federal initiatives to promote apprenticeships.
  • Administrative and legislative reforms that will facilitate the formation and success of apprenticeship programs.
  • The most effective strategies for creating industry-recognized apprenticeships.
  • The most effective strategies for amplifying and encouraging private-sector initiatives to promote apprenticeships.

(Read More)