While the U.S. House of Representatives passed the ABC-supported Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act last week, the bill still has an uncertain pathway in the U.S. Senate, where Republicans have taken a harder line against the proposal, calling for an amendment process. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said the expanded Child Tax Credit in the deal is the biggest issue for the GOP.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is hosting a webinar on electronically submitting workplace injury and illness data using the Injury Tracking Application on Feb. 7 from 1-2 p.m. ET. Registration is free.

On Jan. 30, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council released a proposed rule, Pay Equity and Transparency in Federal Contracting. The proposal would prohibit federal contractors and subcontractors from requesting or considering information about a job applicant’s salary history during hiring for certain positions and would also require them to publicly disclose the salary for certain positions as part of any advertisements for the job opening.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division recently announced a series of virtual compliance seminars to provide information on prevailing wage requirements for federally funded construction and service contracts. Each seminar will offer separate sessions focused on Davis-Bacon Act and Service Contract Act compliance.

On Jan. 30, 2024, ABC submitted a letter requesting a 30-day extension of the comment period on the U.S. Department of Defense’s proposed rule and guidance documents implementing the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification 2.0 Program.

The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council’s final rule, Use of Project Labor Agreements for Federal Construction Projects, took effect on Jan. 22. The final rule implements President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14063, which requires federal construction contracts of $35 million or more to be subjected to controversial project labor agreements.

The Biden administration continues to roll back Trump-era initiatives and institute new, pro-union policies that challenge ABC members’ ability to win work. ABC continues to fight against these proposed rules and regulations affecting merit shop contractors and advocate for open competition and free enterprise.

The Construction Specifications Institute is looking for new members on its MasterFormat Task Team—a group of eight specification, architecture, engineering, construction and owner professionals selected to serve the industry by investing time, expertise and effort in the updating and maintenance of the MasterFormat classification standard. The deadline to apply is Jan. 30.

On Jan. 17, 2024, the Federal Register published the controversial 626-page U.S. Department of Labor proposed rule that would make significant revisions to the National Apprenticeship System that will affect ABC members, chapters, apprentices and other industry stakeholders participating in government-registered apprenticeship programs.

On Jan. 11, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a final rule to adjust for inflation the civil monetary penalties assessed or enforced by the DOL, pursuant to the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 as amended by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015. The Inflation Adjustment Act requires that the agency annually adjust its civil money penalty levels for inflation by Jan. 15 of each year. However, due to a federal holiday on Jan. 15, the new OSHA penalty amounts went into effect on Jan. 16.