On July 31, 2014, US President Barack Obama signed an executive order which will require federal contractors to disclose prior labor violations. Specifically, contractors will be required to disclose violations which occurred in the prior three years involving federal and state wage and hour laws, safety and health, collective bargaining, family and medical leave and civil rights protections. The Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order will apply to contractors with more than $500,000 in federal procurements. According to the estimates by the Department of Labor, there are approximately 24,000 such businesses, which employ more than 28 million workers. Such requirements will be implemented on new contracts in 2016.
In addition to this reporting obligation, this executive order also requires the following of federal contractors:
- Companies with federal contracts of $1 million or more may not mandate that their employees enter into arbitration agreements for disputes arising out of Title VII or tort claims related to sexual assault or harassment.
- Contractors must give their employees information concerning their pay, hours worked, overtime hours and any additions to or deductions made from their pay.
This most recent executive order comes on the heels of a couple of other orders propounded in 2014, including orders which require federal contractors to pay workers at least $10.10 an hour and an order which bars federal contractors from discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers.
