Tag Archives: labor

WIPP Works in Washington – June 2018

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Adding the Voice of Women Business Owners in Addressing the Skills Gap

Ann Sullivan,                 WIPP Chief Advocate

At a recent meeting with women business owners—midsize and small–they pointed out shortages in the workforce that presented a present and future issue.  The concerns ranged from finding truck drivers and master electricians to highly skilled technical personnel.  Business owners aren’t the only ones talking about the shortages in the workforce, Congress and the Administration are concentrating on strategies to fill what is known as the “skills gap.”

The Obama Administration workforce development priorities focused on promoting community colleges and their two-year, associates degree tracks as a valid alternative to four-year degree programs, as well as encouraging partnerships between community colleges and employers.

The Trump Administration is focusing its efforts on apprenticeship.  Last year, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO), “Expanding Apprenticeships in America,” which would provide industry associations, unions, and other stakeholders the flexibility to develop industry-recognized apprenticeships, loosening the Department of Labor regulations on apprenticeship programs.  The Administration’s Executive Order also doubled the amount of money for apprenticeship grants, from $90 million to almost $200 million a year. Additionally, the order establishes a new Task Force on Apprenticeship Expansion, chaired by the Secretary of Labor and co-chaired by the Secretaries of Education and Commerce. It would also include representatives from industry, labor, and educational institutions.

Congress is also taking a hard look at the skills gap. In a recent House Small Business Committee hearing, “Workforce Development: Closing the Skills Gap,” the committee discussed career and technical education (CTE), as well as apprenticeships as a strategies to addressing the lack of qualified, skilled workers needed by business and industry. Other Committees on both sides of Congress are also trying to figure out how to chip away at this issue.

WIPP members come to the workforce development issue from two angles:  one as an employer and one as a woman who likely experienced additional challenges in the workplace.  We are sensitive to making sure women are an important part of the workforce and treated fairly.  The article “10 facts about American women in the workforce,” highlights particular issues that women struggle with such as the wage gap, labor participation rates and paid maternity leave.

In fact, the President’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, has also brought forth the struggle with childcare as a priority issue for this Administration— with good reason. Most young children in the U.S. have parents who work outside the home or are business owners. According to the Brookings Institute, in 56% of married families with children under six, both parents work.  For single mothers the employment rate is 6%. Childcare is a necessity for these families, and unfortunately often unaffordable in the United States. Working families are spending on average between 29% to 52% of their take-home pay on childcare costs, yet the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concludes that affordable childcare should not exceed 7% of family income.

Workforce development is a new issue to WIPP’s policy team and we welcome your thoughts and experiences.  Our goal is to ensure that the voice of women business owners is part of the discussion in both Congress and the Administration.  Businesses of all sizes share a common goal of building America’s workforce to adapt to the economy of tomorrow.  Women as business owners should be taking the lead in this effort by taking steps from strengthening women’s participation in STEAM, to being visible in the highest positions in business and industry.  There is so much work to do and our voice is critical to the solution.

Costs and Benefits: Paid Sick Leave For Federal Contractors

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By: Jake Clabaugh, WIPP Government Relations

sick leave paidFederal contractors have been hit with a bevy of new regulations over the past few months – everything from increased reporting of labor and safety violations, a raise in minimum wages and increases in mandatory overtime pay. The next shoe will drop in January 2017, when ALL Federal contractors, primes and subs, will have to provide paid sick leave benefits to workers. The Department of Labor (DOL) proposed rules that would implement this change last month.

Contracts issued January 1, 2017 will require all Federal contractors to give employees 1 hour of paid sick leave per 30 hours worked. This rule will only apply to time spent on Federal contracts, so if an employee performs some work for a private sector client, those hours would not count toward sick leave accrual. Additionally, earned sick leave will carry over from one year to the next.

Why just contractors? The President issued an Executive Order to make the change. Like other new regulations pertaining to contractors, the President can make these decisions for his workforce. Congress has been unable to decide if or how to move forward on these issues so the President decided to act on his own. As the Commander in Chief, he can determine procurement policy – including requirements for contractors – without Congress having to pass a law.

While WIPP members support worker benefits in practice, we don’t believe that the DOL gave enough consideration to how this rule will affect small businesses. Without an exception for small businesses, the vast majority of women-owned business will be compelled to provide the same benefits as multi-billion dollar firms.

WIPP’s comments to DOL on the proposed rule can be read in full here.

“Fair Pay” Rules Just Aren’t Fair

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By John Stanford, WIPP Government Relations

Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) recently submitted comments on proposed regulations that would require federal contractors to disclose labor violations from the past three years. This blog accompanies those comments as a summary of WIPP’s position. For more details or if this impacts your business, I encourage you to read the full comment here.

Last summer, President Obama issued an Executive Order with the goal of barring bad companies from winning federal contracts. WIPP, along with most in the contracting community, agrees that companies that follow the rules should not have to compete against companies that break them for federal contracts.

In May, the Labor Department and the FAR Council (overseers of contracting rulebook, “the FAR”) proposed how the President’s order would be implemented. It turns out, as with most things, the devil is in the details.

The proposed regulations require federal contractors and subcontractors to disclose violations of 14 federal labor laws and equivalent state laws from the previous three years. Exemptions were provided for companies with contracts valued less than $500,000. As proposed, prospective federal contractors would need to declare if they had labor violations in the previous three years when submitting an offer. During an initial evaluation, contracting officers would see that declaration (a simple “yes” or “no”), without any additional detail or explanation.

Later, if a contractor were likely to win an award, the contracting officer would have to decide if the contractor is a responsible company (a requirement of all government contracts already). It is in this phase that details like appeals, remediation, or mitigating factors could be explained. Contracting officers will attempt to identify companies with “serious”, “willful”, “repeated”, and/or “pervasive” violations and not award them contracts. Companies with minor violations could still be considered responsible and win contracts.

WIPP responded to the regulation during the public comment period expressing concerns with the new system and how it could negatively impact women-owned businesses, including those who had no history of unsafe or unfair work practices.

Notably, the proposals were incomplete as the Labor Department and FAR Council chose not to include what state labor law violations must be reported. It is impossible to gauge the impact of a regulation – the reason for comments– when missing significant portions.

What was in the proposals, however, was equally concerning. WIPP’s comment discusses how, in some cases, violations that require reporting will not be be fully adjudicated. That is, companies would have to report decisions against them that may ultimately be overturned – as nearly a third of NLRB decisions have been.

This is compounded by WIPP’s worry that simply having violations on record will “blacklist” companies without providing any opportunity to offer explanation. With limited resources and time, contracting officers may elect to avoid companies with any disclosed violations, despite the intent of the order to only bar violations of a certain severity.

The comment also considers burdens on subcontractors who similarly must report violation history, and the lack of resources the government may face to answer questions about weighing different labor violations. Moreover, the onus to collect and judge subcontractor violations falls to primes, a strategy the Labor Department itself questions.

WIPP’s final concern is that this rule is one of many in a disconcerting trend of new regulations that specifically target federal contractors. Earlier this year, regulations raised the minimum wage solely for workers on federal contracts. New requirements regarding sick leave are expected to come later this year. These make contracting with the federal government more onerous, particularly for women entrepreneurs seeking to enter the market.

Without question, WIPP supports efforts by the federal government to rid the contracting environment of businesses with a history of abusive and neglectful violations. In doing so, the government levels the playing field for the millions of businesses playing by the rules. But the proposals commented on will not achieve this goal. Instead, they will make it harder to be a contractor – pushing the innovative products and services of women-owned businesses out of the federal market.