Labor Dept. Seeks Feedback on Value of SCA Data Collection

The Labor Department is seeking feedback on how it handles four pillars of the Service Contract Act. 

In a Federal Register notice, the agency’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) said it is soliciting comments on how it collects and uses information culled from contractors governed by the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act (SCA). 

More interestingly, the July 11 notice invited comments on whether the information it collects from contractors in four key areas — fringe benefits, conformance, indexing and succession contracting — is actually useful. 

“The Department of Labor is particularly interested in comments which evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information will have practical utility,” the notice stated. 

The notice — which technically seeks an extension for an existing information collection request — also seeks feedback on what other kinds of information it should collect from contractors and whether its estimates of the number of hours involved in gathering the information is accurate. 

The Four Pillars

The notice specifically says that every contract subject to the SCA must contain a provision specifying the minimum wages and benefits to be paid to various classes of employees. Problems can arise when employees are working in job classifications that the Labor Department wasn’t previously informed about or if no wage data is available for that classification, the notice reads 

In this case, the employer would “conform,” or add, classifications and wage rates to these classes of employees, before sending that conformance action to the WHD for review and approval. 

A different section of the SCA holds that any contractor that succeeds a contract and provides the same services shall pay that worker no less than the wages and fringe benefits that worker “would have been entitled [to] if employed under the predecessor contract.” 

The previous contractor would provide the contracting officer with a copy of any collective bargaining agreement governing the wages and fringe benefits, which would be passed along to the WHD, where the information is used in issuing wage determinations. 

The notice also mentions provisions in the SCA where an employee’s vacation benefits transfer with them if they work for a successor contractor, as well as the means for a contractor to compute a new rate for a previously indexed, or conformed, class. 

The comment period is open until Sept. 9.