July
5 — The National Labor Relations Board is preparing to report alleged labor law
violations by government contractors named by regional directors in unfair labor
practice complaints, the agency disclosed in a memorandum to its field offices.
Associate
General Counsel Anne Purcell wrote July 1 in Memorandum OM 16-23 that the NLRB
will ask charged employers to provide information that could identify them as
federal contractors.
When
an employer is named in an unfair labor practice complaint, the NLRB will
report the information to a federal database to comply with the Fair Pay and
Safe Workplaces executive
order President Obama signed on July 31, 2014.
The
executive order requires the NLRB and other agencies to assist contracting
agencies and officials in assessing labor law violations by employers with
government contracts valued at more than $500,000.
The
NLRB won't forward information to the database if an employer settles or
resolves an unfair labor practice case before the issuance of a complaint.
Employers Will Be Asked for ID Numbers
Purcell
said the NLRB has already correlated some data points from its case management
system for forwarding to a federal database. The database will be used by the
labor compliance advisers, who will assess whether contractors' labor law
violations should be classified as serious, repeated, willful or pervasive.
Beginning
with unfair labor practice complaints issued on or after July 1, she said, the
NLRB will also collect data on whether an employer is or has been a federal
contractor, and will gather identification numbers, including Commercial and
Government Entity and Data Universal Numbers System identifiers, and employer
or taxpayer identification numbers.
Once
a regional office has determined that a charge against an employer has merit,
Purcell wrote, the employer will be asked to provide the business
identification numbers using an online form. The associate general counsel said
the NLRB is designing an internet portal that will allow employers to file the
form and other documents more efficiently.
NLRB Complaints Will Be Sent to Database
The
memorandum included a model e-mail for regional offices to transmit to an
employer after a merit determination on an unfair labor practice charge against
an employer.
The
e-mail would inform the employer that the NLRB will forward information on a
case to the federal contractor database if a formal complaint is issued. The
information, the NLRB warns, “may be considered by the Labor Compliance
Advisors in assessing whether the charged party employer is eligible to
contract with the federal government.”
The
message would also warn the employer that if it has not provided business
identification data to the NLRB, the agency will transmit the case information
it has along with a report describing the employer's noncompliance.
However,
the model e-mail states, “if you reach a resolution of this matter before the
Region issues a complaint, such as by entering a pre-complaint informal
settlement agreement with the Regional Director, no information on this case
will be forwarded to this database.”
To
contact the reporter on this story: Lawrence E. Dubé in Washington at ldube@bna.com
To
contact the editor responsible for this story: Susan J. McGolrick at smcgolrick@bna.com
For
More Information
Text
of the memorandum is available at http://src.bna.com/guj.
Source: BNA
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