It 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 MoreThere is nothing especially reassuring about the ability of the third branch of American government to stand up to a persistent authoritarian executive’s excessive exercise of presidential power. However, whatever the gloss given to the meaning of the term “86”, the prosecution of James Comey is an abuse of prosecutorial discretion, and a further descent into authoritarian government.
Read MoreIt 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 MoreMany taxpayers are claiming the new overtime pay tax deduction for all their overtime income, not just the extra one-half premium pay. Also, no surprise, ineligible workers are also claiming the deduction. According to the WSJ, so far this tax season 22 million returns or more than 20% of tax filers have claimed the deduction, a rate more than twice what was predicted at the time of enactment of The Big Beautiful Bill last year. Some of those taxpayers are going to need a FLSA expert to help defend them from IRS audits and resulting interest and penalties.
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 MoreThis blog is a call for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to follow up and issue new rulemaking on the click to cancel issue. This isn’t a partisan issue. It is a question of farness and corporate responsibility. Without some new regulations, corporate America is allowing roguish policy to govern the renewal of its software and publication practices.
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.
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Practicing law and shoveling snow have some things in common. Dogged persistence is a plus in both endeavors.
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.
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One of the glories of my life is an invigorating walk to work in the fresh virgin snow, newly fallen, before anyone else has trampled it down. The world feels new and clean once again, and there is, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, about Jay Gatsby, “some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life….”
Read MoreI write about this after the events of January 30, 2026, when my silver investments peaked at $121 an ounce only to fall in a breathtaking swoop to a low of $71 an ounce later in the same day. Here is my thinking on the extraordinary event and a lifetime of investing.
Read MoreAlaska Airlines operational problems and serial seat bumping have led me to turn a jaundice eye on frequent flyer programs. “The squeeze is not worth the juice.”
Read MoreDelta Airlines decision to bump me out of a first-class seat on a 10-hour flight at the boarding gate really burns me up. There is something seriously wrong in the airline industry.
Read MoreThis blog has nothing to do with Government Contracts, my avocation. It instead focuses on investing, one of my hobbies. (My wife says I don’t have any hobbies, but that’s because she isn’t interested in the hobbies I have.) Anyway, here are some investment predictions for 2026.
Read MoreIt took only a week or one of my predictions about 2026 to likely come to fruition. In last week’s blog, I gave ten predictions about the coming year. Number 7 was as follows: “Defense contractors with cost reimbursement contracts and pricing power will continue to see heavy demand for equipment and services and will prosper.”
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