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On April 5, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced that it is starting an enforcement program that identifies employers who failed to submit Form 300A data through the agency’s Injury Tracking Application. The enforcement program will begin in early April and was developed in response to recommendations from the Government Accountability Office to improve reporting of summary injury and illness data.
On March 31, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs announced new directive 2022-02: Effective Compliance Evaluations and Enforcement, which rescinds directives issued under the Trump administration aimed at increasing the certainty, efficiency and transparency of the department’s operations for the contractor community.
The ABC Workforce Development Management System was created to evaluate such programs and validate what each organization is already doing or identify areas for enhancement. It is a no-cost, easy-to-use assessment designed to assist users with a self-evaluation of their workforce development program, using 11 key components of world-class programs.
Franz Eston June, former ABC president (now the role of the ABC chair of the board of directors), died on Friday, March 18, 2022.
On March 30, ABC sent a letter to a Congressional subcommittee cautioning that more regulations and less worker freedom, combined with the
ABC is concerned about a proposal from the Biden administration that will increase the number of contractors subject to electronic safety data submission requirements and carry risks for exposing confidential business information by posting parts of the submissions on a public website.
Following the release of the U.S Department of Labor’s proposed rule, Updating the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts Regulations, on March 18, ABC formally submitted a request for the 60-day comment period to be extended by an additional 60 days.
On March 28, the White House released the president’s $5.8 trillion budget for the next fiscal year, which renews calls for tax hikes to support Democrats’ federal spending priorities in the coming years. Â
On Feb. 17, the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a proposed rule to make amendments to the Agriculture Acquisition Regulation, which includes new labor law compliance certifications and reporting provisions that present wide-ranging implications for ABC members that perform work on federal contracts awarded under the AGAR. On March 21, ABC submitted comments urging the USDA to withdraw the proposal.
On March 15, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas dealt a blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to delay and rescind the Trump administration’s 2021 independent contractor final rule. Under a decision applauded by ABC, which had sued to block those actions, the ABC-supported rule went into effect as scheduled on March 8, 2021, and remains in effect today.