The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued a rare opinion letter last week responding to an inquiry about the calculation of Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave when a employee works an FMLA-reduced schedule during a week that has a holiday. Read on to find out how to compute the amount of FMLA consumed in this scenario.
Read MoreThere is a new DOL Bulletin setting forth the requirements to accommodate employees who wish to pump breast milk while working. It gives remote workers the same rights as those who have returned to or never left the workplace.
Read MoreConventional wisdom holds that bid protests are an uphill battle. It can be tough to win them. And sometimes when you win, you still lose because the contract’s still awarded to your competitor. A recent bid protest decision illustrates how a successful protest prompted the agency to appoint a new evaluation team that changed the outcome.
Read MoreThe federal backstop to enforcement of child labor laws is still at work even as some states let down their guard.
Read MoreContractors who are experienced in the world of multiple award contracts likely are familiar with how the small business regulations operate under those contract vehicles. However, there are some wrinkles. Small businesses that are considering whether to dive into this world should learn more about the maze of small business regulations so they can anticipate the potential pitfalls that could come with success.
Read MoreAn entity called the Foundation for Government Accountability is lobbying to maneuver various measures to water down state regulation of child labor laws. This is morally wrong. Reasonable child labor rules and enforcement are not inconsistent with a belief in limited government or pro-business policies.
Read MoreHere are some observations on forty years of practicing wage & hour law.
Read MoreYesterday’s tax filing deadline brought to mind a recent Small Business Administration decision in which a contractor lost out because it didn’t supply its tax returns. If SBA knocks on your door because a protest has been filed, don’t leave things to chance. Respond in a timely and complete manner—you want to make it easy for the SBA to see things your way.
Read MoreEmployers can pay extra shift premiums to exempt workers, if they wish, without impacting the salary basis of compensation, provided that they kept the amount of the shift premium reasonable in relation to the amount of total compensation.
Read MoreService Contract Act (“SCA“) covered fixed priced contracts generally have one of two FAR clauses for price adjustments — either FAR 52.222-43 or -44. But there are different price adjustment clauses and provisions for cost reimbursement contracts. Where the SCA provisions and the standard cost reimbursement clauses overlap is in hybrid contracting, involving both fixed price and cost reimbursement CLINS. In those circumstances the overlapping price adjustment issues can be murky.
Read MoreIt looks likes the sponsor of the government contractor FEDX ETF I like to blog periodically about has pulled the plug. As far as I can tell the ETF is no more. I speculate it had insufficient assets to be profitable for its sponsor. What this means about Government contracting I can’t discern, except to say that as an investment idea it didn’t catch on.
Read MoreDOL recently announced that US Marshals arrested a New York restaurateur for failure to respond to a subpoena as part of a Fair Labor Standards Act investigation. This is the second such arrest in the last few months. As I said in my blog about the first arrest - things simply go better when employers take DOL investigations seriously.
Read MoreSome disputes are not meant to be litigated in court or arbitrated. One example is job classification disputes under the Service Contract Act (“SCA”) or the Davis-Bacon Act (“ DBA”). Such disputes are committed to the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Labor. Only DOL is supposed to decide them and then provide for administrative appeals. Don’t let your union drag you into an arbitration of job classification disputes on service and construction US government contracts.
Read MoreI suspect a word more colorful than “whoops” was said when the Air Force discovered that it had a awarded a contract to a supplier that technically was not permitted to furnish the part that was ordered. However, what followed that realization was not a whoops moment.
Read MoreJulie Su is posed to ascend the ladder at DOL and become the next Secretary of Labor, as Marty Walsh leaves to go play hockey.
Read MoreContractors are on their own when it comes to determining what wages they must pay under a contract covered by the Service Contract Act. That’s exactly what the Government Accountability Office held when it denied the protest of a prospective contractor that sought a ruling about when under a diving services contract it should pay prevailing wages to its divers.
Read MoreNoncompete agreements are under attack by recent proposals coming from the Biden Administration as well as a bipartisan group of Senators. Such clauses are standard fare for employment agreements, particularly for senior executives. However, in this world of remote work and a patchwork of state laws, a national rule might not be so bad after all. So, fear not, the sky actually might not fall if one of these proposals comes to pass.
Read MoreJust out — a White House memorandum directing all federal contracting agencies to hire labor advisors to help coordinate with DOL and comply with the laws regarding labor and employment which pertain to federal procurements. This includes especially the Service Contract Act and the Davis-Bacon Act, but also many other labor requirements and Executive Orders.
Read MoreCivil money penalties (“CMP”) for the FLSA, CWHSSA and the PCA just went up based on inflation rate and a formula used to round them to the nearest dollar. These CMPs affect child labor and willful FLSA violations. They also impact overtime penalties for federal contractors.
Read MoreThe Wall Street Journal got the minimum wage wrong. But the good news is they issued an errata shortly thereafter correcting the mistake.
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