|
Many companies
have realized that federal
contracting dollars have grown
tremendously in the past 20 years.
With a shrinking federal work force,
mobilized military and a growing
demand for public services federal
contract spending will only continue
to rise. Although many companies
wish to take advantage of these
potential dollars, most find the
demands placed on federal
contractors to be too great to
succeed.
Labor
Regulations are considered to be one
of the greatest areas of difficulty
for federal contractors. With
regulations such as the Service
Contract Act and Davis Bacon Act,
contractors are burdened with
understanding the ins and outs of
wage determinations, vacation
schedules and vesting requirements,
holiday schedules, hourly health and
welfare benefits, etc. What makes
this more complicated is that many
of these federal requirements vary
greatly from company policies on non
government work.
Contractor
Solutions Group, Inc prides itself
on being the one true solution to
solving the challenges of the
Service Contract Act and Davis Bacon
Act. It is important, however, to
understand these rules first. The
following are brief overviews. All
of our clients receive full training
on these regulations and the effect
that their requirements have on
planning, bidding and managing
federal contracts.
McNamara
O’Hara Service Contract Act of 1965
– Federal regulation which is placed
on all contracts with the federal
government for services greater than
$2500. This Act states that
all employers must pay their
employees according to geographic
wage determinations based on job
descriptions. Further,
employers must follow a specific
holiday and vacation schedule as
well as pay employees an hourly
health and welfare rate based or the
averaging or individual
methodologies.
Davis Bacon
Act – Enacted in 1932 on
contracts for construction.
The Davis Bacon Act places and
hourly wage and fringe benefit
requirement on contracts for
construction, alteration or repair,
but does allow these requirements to
be bundles for purposes of
compliance. Problems arise,
however, in determining what is a
wage or a benefit for purposes of
overtime pay or contract
reimbursement. Further, the
requirement for compliance is
weekly, which is difficult to manage
when it comes to the fringe benefit
portion.
|
