Contractors who violate OSH laws could lose federal contracts
The Obama administration’s move to crack down on federal contractors who violate labor laws and to ensure that employees of contractors retain their access to court for certain disputes has won approval from Public Citizen, a nonpartisan public advocacy group.
The administration released guidance and a notice of rulemaking to implement a 2014 executive order issued by the president to ensure that federal contractors maintain fair, safe and just workplaces.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) guidance and rulemaking under the Federal Acquisition Regulation will improve critical workplace protections and level the playing field for law-abiding businesses because the specific requirements will help deter employer misconduct, Public Citizen said.
“The DOL guidance suggests that there will be deeper implications for employers who violate labor laws, particularly the Occupational Safety and Health Act,” said Keith Wrightson, worker safety advocate for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “Contractors who are working on federally funded projects will not simply be able to pay a fine and continue to violate the law. Those violations will now be a factor in whether or not the federal government continues to do business with them, and rightly so.”
Among other worker rights assurances, the executive order prohibits federal contractors with contracts estimated to exceed $1 million from using the fine print of their employment contracts to force employees to settle employment disputes in a private arbitration system. Now, federal contractor employees with certain civil rights, harassment and sexual assault claims can choose to go to court after disputes with their employers arise. The executive order is similar to a U.S. Department of Defense rule for defense contractors.