Federal contract service workers have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in pay and benefits and are at risk of losing more because of bureaucratic fumbling.
A new report by the government’s main watchdog says poor communication among agencies, poor tracking of cases and poor use of enforcement tools could result in cheating workers on federal projects out of even more compensation due under the Service Contract Act (SCA).
“These challenges hinder its ability to effectively and efficiently enforce the SCA, increasing the chance that workers will not receive pay and benefits to which they are entitled,” the Government Accountability Office told a Senate Budget Committee hearing earlier this month.
The Labor Department enforces the law, but individual agencies oversee the work of the contractors and their companies. Under the law, most federal contracting companies are required to pay service employees — including security guards, food workers and maintenance staffers — at least locally prevailing wage rates and fringe benefits.
When Labor investigated more than 5,000 service contract cases from 2014 through 2019, the GAO said the department discovered violations in 68 percent of cases — “primarily of wage and benefit protections.”
That led to “employers across a range of service industries” agreeing to pay $224 million in back wages, according to investigators. The GAO did not calculate how many companies were included in that figure, but Thomas Costa, the agency’s...
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