The Office of Advocacy, an independent office within the U.S. Small Business Administration, is holding a virtual roundtable to hear directly from small businesses about the Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposed rule to update regulations implementing the Davis-Bacon Act (DBA). This roundtable will take place on Monday, April 25, 2022, 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. (ET) via the Teams platform.
Comments on the proposed rule are due on May 17th, 2022.
Please RSVP by email to Janis.Reyes@sba.gov if you would like to join this virtual meeting.
Jessica Looman, Acting Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division at Department of Labor has been invited to provide a brief description of this proposed rule. This will be followed by a session to hear directly from stakeholders about the impact of these proposed changes on small businesses.
Please note that during the roundtable we will not be seeking any collective consensus on the rule and any comments made during this roundtable will not be considered official comments in this rulemaking process.
On March 18, 2022, DOL published a proposed rule to update regulations implementing the Davis-Bacon Act, which applies to federal and federally assisted construction projects.
DOL has prepared an initial regulatory flexibility analysis for this rulemaking and seeks feedback on the numbers of small businesses affected and their compliance costs. The proposal revises definitions such as “site of the work” to include sites where prefabricated buildings are produced and “scope of work” to include energy infrastructure. These changes may lead to more small firms being required to comply with Davis-Bacon labor standards. The proposal also changes the methodology for determining the prevailing wage. DOL currently uses the average rate if a majority of workers do not receive the same wage rate. Under the proposed rule, if a majority of workers are not paid a particular wage, DOL will identify any wage rate that is paid to more than 30 percent of the workers as prevailing. If there is still no wage prevailing, the agency will revert to an average rate to determine prevailing wage. DOL also proposes to update non-union prevailing rates every three years to address out-of-date wage determinations.
Roundtable meetings are open to all interested persons, except the press, in order to facilitate an open and frank discussion about issues of interest to small business. Agendas and meeting materials are available to all, including the press. Anyone who would like to receive roundtable agendas or meeting materials, or be included in the regular distribution, should contact: Janis.Reyes@sba.gov. The purpose of this meeting is to exchange opinions, facts, and information and to obtain the attendees’ individual views and opinions regarding regulatory and policy issues affecting small business. The meetings are not intended to communicate or achieve any consensus positions of the attendees.