On February 17, 2022, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed a rule to update its Agriculture Acquisition Regulation (AGAR), which has not had a major revision since 1996. One component of the proposed rule requires USDA contractors to maintain compliance with a broad range of labor and employment laws and regulations in order to do business with the USDA. These requirements are strikingly similar to the Obama-era Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order (nicknamed “the blacklist rule”). Contractors should be aware that this proposed rule would give the USDA greater authority to bypass a contractor in the federal government process because of a wide range of alleged labor violations. It could also signal an agency-by-agency approach to including labor law compliance as a prerequisite to landing government contracts.
Under the proposal, USDA contracts worth more than the simplified acquisition threshold would have to include two new clauses requiring contractors to certify compliance with labor laws during the term of the contract and to disclose past violations of specified labor and employment laws. For 2022, the threshold is $250,000.
The first clause, titled Labor Law Violations, requires a contractor to certify compliance with 15 specified labor laws and to immediately notify the contracting officer of any future adjudications of noncompliance. Contractors also must certify that, to the best of their knowledge, their subcontractors and...
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