Paul DeCamp, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in Engineering News-Record, in “Labor Secretary Chavez-DeRemer Resigns Amid Probe, Shifting Oversight of Safety, Wages,” by Bryan Gottlieb. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
The Labor Dept. oversees the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Davis-Bacon prevailing wage enforcement, apprenticeship and workforce training policy and a wide range of wage-and-hour, union and workplace compliance matters. Those responsibilities directly affect contractors, specialty trades, construction labor and federally funded infrastructure work.
Sonderling’s move into the acting role puts a known department official in charge as contractors, unions and public owners watch for any shift in enforcement, prevailing wage oversight, apprenticeship policy and the administration’s broader deregulatory agenda.
Paul DeCamp, a wage-and-hour attorney at Epstein Becker Green who led the Labor Dept.’s Wage and Hour Division during President George W. Bush’s second term, said the first signs of Sonderling’s priorities are likely to come through rulemaking already in the pipeline.
“Initially, watch for the Department under Acting Secretary Sonderling to focus on advancing items already on the regulatory agenda,” DeCamp said, pointing to apprenticeship programs, industry-specific OSHA standards and wage-and-hour rules on joint employment and independent-contractor status.
He added that enforcement should remain important, though staffing levels could affect its reach, and said he would not expect significant near-term Davis-Bacon changes because of bandwidth constraints.
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