DOL is cleaning up some (but not all) of the confusion surrounding the use of the Fluctuating Work Week (“FWW”) / half-time method of paying overtime to salaried workers. DOL has proposed that bonuses and other payments in addition to the salary will not get in the way of the payment of a half-time overtime premium to otherwise salaried workers.
Read MoreThe Service Contract Act once had an expansive exemption for certain commercial contracts, but the current iteration of the DOL and FAR rules cut back on that significantly and left a very restricted SCA prime and subcontract exemption that few contractors can use.
Read MoreYou just won a contract. You brought that brilliant project manager on board. Then, your competitor files a protest and you have to stop work. What do you do to keep that manager in the stable? A recent case at the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals denied a contractor the cost of doing something quite reasonable—keeping the manager on board.
Read MoreWhen government service contractors unionize, they can pass the cost of any well-timed wage and benefit increases to the US government under the Service Contract Act Price Adjustment clause.
Read MoreNew proposed tip credit rules are out to implement the statutory changes. Comments are due in December 2019.
Read MorePresident Trump revoked EO 13495 on Oct. 31, 2019, without formal rulemaking, and thereby set up a situation where new and existing solicitations, and current contracts containing the Nondisplacement Executive Order clause, will likely be subject to some confusion until the regulatory situation is resolved. But the bottom line is the service employee first right of refusal requirement has been revoked and there will be no more DOL enforcement actions.
Read MoreThe wage and hour section of the beta.sam.gov website continues to be debeviled with small problems and offers diminished resources to the public.
Read MoreDOJ has issued guidance about how trade secrets and commercial or financial information should be treated under new Supreme Court precedent interpreting the Freedom of Information Act. This guidance hopefully will achieve the Court’s “fair reading” of the term “confidential” when it comes to determining whether information should be exempt from FOIA disclosures.
Read MoreThe Service Contract Act (“SCA”) presents both opportunities and peril each time a contractor submits a proposal to work on a covered contract. This is a primer on some of those pitfalls and opportunities.
Read MoreUnder the Service Contract Act (“SCA”), employers with self-insured unfunded health and weflare (“H&W”) plans are better off forming a trust and paying acturial premiums into the trust monthly so they can get proper credit for the fringe benefits furnished.
Read MoreMost notably, the final FLSA rule dispenses with the proposed rule’s significant increase in the salary requirement for the Highly Compensated Employee (“HCE”) test, and instead substitues a modest increase from $100,000 to a new salary basis of $107,432, effective January 2020.
Read MoreWhile the Service Contract Act (“SCA”) price adjustment clause requires contractors to submit their price adjustment prposals within 30 days of the contract modification adding a new wage determination, the Board says that requirement is not jurisdictional and doesn’t bar the claim. However, a failure of proof of actual costs will bar the recovery.
Read MoreOrdinarily, a service contractor has the duty to compare the employee positions that will be providing service under a contract with an applicable SCA wage determination so as to ascertain how much the employees should be paid and what benefits they receive. In a recent case, the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals held that that is not always the case.
Read MoreComp time is ordinarily only used for public sector workers or exempt employees. But sometime workers are mislassified as exempt and erroneously receive comp time. In those circumstances, the employer should get a credit for the comp time actually paid towards any premium overtime due.
Read MoreThe Service Contract Act has complex rules for wages and benefits. Here is a Q&A format with a few answers to questions posed by a small business employer.
Read MoreThe Service Contract Act (“SCA”) covers all “service employees” working on or in connection with a government service contract. But that begs the issue of when a worker is directly working on a contract versus indirectly facilitating the performance of the work. As to where the coverage line is drawn, that depends on the contract terms and the employee’s job duties.
Read MoreResponding to Department of Labor investigations is not a simple exercise. While you are required to cooperate, provide documents and access to employees, you are not obligated to accept an investigator’s findings and you can question them. But, before you push back, be thoughtful. And,don’t forget to check the math.
Read MoreGiven the impending run out of grandfather contracts award and CBAs, the time is near that the sick leave Executive Order will apply to most service and construction contracts.
Read MoreThe U.S. Department of Labor issued All Agency Memorandum (“AAM”) no. 230 posting new health and welfare (“H&W”) fringe benefit rates for Service Contract Act (“SCA”) covered contracts effective July 5, 2019. The new H&W rates are $4.54 an hour, except if there is a sick leave Executive Order clause in the contract, whereupon the H&W rates are set at $4.22 an hour.
Read MoreThe Court of Federal Claims decsion in Just In Time Staffing maintains the long-established practice of limiting the FAR price adjustment clause to its plain language – covering the increased costs of wages and fringe benefits of the contractor’s employees and certain enumerated payroll taxes — and not to the cost to negotiate a CBA.
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