Worker Protection: Federal Contractors and Violations of Labor Law
HEHS-96-8
Published: Oct 24, 1995. Publicly Released: Oct 24, 1995.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the extent to which federal contractors violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), focusing on: (1) the characteristics associated with these NLRA violators; and (2) ways to improve federal contractors' compliance with NLRA.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| National Labor Relations Board | The Chairman and General Counsel, NLRB, and the Administrator, GSA, should develop an information arrangement approach to facilitate the identification of violators who receive federal contracts. |
NLRB issued regulations enabling it to use administrative and tax refund offsets to collect money from labor law violators, including those who receive federal contracts, who failed to comply with an NLRB order to restore wages. Through administrative offset, NLRB may request other federal agencies to withhold money owed to it from violators' contract payments, and through tax refund offset, it may request IRS to withhold debts owed to NLRB from violators' income tax refunds. NLRB is making full use of offsets. Although the action taken by NLRB is different than what GAO recommended, it is consistent with the spirit of the recommendation and could enhance NLRB's enforcement of the act more than GAO anticipated. Using offsets to collect debts owed by all violators, rather than only federal contractors, could result in NLRB settling cases more quickly, avoiding lengthy contempt proceedings, gaining cost savings to NLRB and the government from less litigation, and collecting more overdue judgments.
|
| General Services Administration | The Chairman and General Counsel, NLRB, and the Administrator, GSA, should develop an information arrangement approach to facilitate the identification of violators who receive federal contracts. |
No action is intended by GSA because NLRB decided to pursue enforcement of the offset provision with the Treasury Department and IRS. GSA, in turn, provides the quarterly data to IRS on federal contractors that NLRB needs to enforce this provision.
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Administrative remediesCollective bargainingContractor violationsEmployee dismissalEmployment discriminationFederal procurementLabor relationsLabor lawProposed legislationDatabase management systems