Under federal regulations and guidance issued recently to implement President Obama’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces (“blacklisting”) Executive Order, prospective federal contractors will be required to begin reporting “violations” of any of 14 federal employment laws and Executive Orders as soon as October 25, 2016. Agency contracting officers will have authority to deny a contract based on their assessment of this information, or can make a contract award contingent upon the contractor entering into a so-called “labor compliance agreement” with an enforcement agency.
The final regulations and guidance, which together we will refer to as the “blacklisting” rule, permit prospective contractors to ask the Department of Labor (DOL) to conduct a “preassessment” of their record of labor law violations in advance of bidding on a federal contract.
DOL is scheduled to begin accepting these preassessment requests the week of September 12. Although DOL has yet to provide details about how the preassessment process will work, the agency has released the forms that contractors will need to use to initiate the process, and DOL’s summary description of those forms provide some information that may help contractors as they consider whether to seek a preassessment. The agency has also set up a website dedicated to preassessment, which can be found here.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.