Proposed Regulation Tells Federal Contractors: Play by the Rules
By Liz Watson, Senior Counsel and Director of Workplace Justice for Women, National Women’s Law Center
Yesterday the Obama administration released a proposed rule to implement the Fair Pay & Safe Workplaces Executive Order, which was signed by President Obama in 2014. The proposed rule is the first step toward making good on the executive order’s message to private contractors: if you have the honor of doing business with the federal government, you must follow the law.
This proposed rule outlines steps the Administration will take to ensure that federal contractors that violate our nation’s labor and employment laws start playing by the rules again. In an effort to protect the millions of workers employed by private companies who have been awarded government contracts, the executive order required federal contractors to report their labor and employment law violations.
According to the Senate HELP Committee, $81 billion in federal contracts were awarded to companies with major labor law violations in fiscal year 2012 alone. Federal contract workers – like the workers who clean the halls of Congress and serve food in our national museums’ cafeterias – simply deserve better.
The proposed rule implementing the executive order will now be subject to a notice-and-comment period, giving the public the opportunity to weigh in. Stay tuned for opportunities to lend your voice to ensure that the final rule fulfills the full promise and potential of the President’s executive order for millions of federal contract workers nationwide.