“Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign”

— Five Man Electrical Band

Many (if not most) of the myriad laws, regulations, and executive orders that apply to federal contractors each come with their own requirements to notify employees of the existence of these laws and their rights under them. For every rule, there’s a poster. News flash: they change - All. The. Time.

Here are some of the latest:

• “Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal” (or, until a couple of weeks ago, the poster formally known as “Equal Opportunity is THE LAW”)

  • This poster put out by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) identifies the laws that prohibit various forms of discrimination in employment and retaliation for complaints about violations. It also identifies places where complaints may be made. The new version updates the law

  • The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”) has now dropped its supplement to the now-superseded EEOC poster; however, federal contractors are still required to post the pay transparency nondiscrimination poster found here. Links to various versions of these posters can be found on OFCCP’s website here.

  • This one needs to go up now.

• Federal Contractor Minimum Wage:

  • As we discussed in a recent blog post, the Federal Contractor Minimum Wage rates will be increased effective January 1, 2023. With new rates come new posters.

  • For contracts covered by the “new” Biden-era minimum wage provisions, the new rate is $16.20/hour or, for tipped employees, $13.75 per hour. Although DOL has not added it to its poster page, the new poster for the “new” executive order can be viewed in the federal register here.

  • For contracts covered by the “old” Obama-era minimum wage provisions, the new rate is $12.15/hour, or for tipped employees, $8.50 per hour. Although DOL has not added it to its poster page, the new poster for the old executive order can be viewed in the federal register here.

  • Whether a contractor’s employees are covered by the new EO or the old EO depends on the contract that they’re working on. Look here for our discussion about the implementation of the new order.

  • These posters will need to go up on January 1, 2023.

I wish I could tell you that there’s a reliable one-stop shop for all your poster obligations, but I can’t. For example, I recently checked out the Wage and Hour Division’s “elaws” advisor tool to see what posters I might have to put up if my firm had a federal contract. After answering all the questions, the tool informed me that I had to put up posters regarding 13 different laws. However, it left out the minimum wage and EEO posters that I’ve discussed here. The OFCCP website’s poster page, however, mentions nothing about the Service Contract Act, Davis-Bacon Act or even the Fair Labor Standards Act posters. Also, we’ve looked at some of the commercially available all-in-one posters. Their accuracy is hit-or-miss.

If you’d like to know more about the pitfalls of the poster requirements, we’ve written about posting requirements in general here, and we’ve discussed using online posting for remote workers here.

However, our bottom line advice. Examine your contracts. Figure out what laws cover which contract. Determine which posters apply to your workforce in the location where they work. And… don’t forget about state law poster requirements. Then - reach for the pain killer of your choice.