PSC, other industry groups fight workforce executive order

The Professional Services Council has joined 15 other trade and professional associations in opposition to the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” executive order.

The executive order requires government contractors to disclose past labor violations as part of the President Obama's effort to “promote economy and efficiency in procurement by contracting with responsible sources who comply with labor laws,” according to the order.

However, PSC and other associations oppose the order, arguing that agencies already have the mechanisms in place to deal with labor law violations and that the order’s new and complicated enforcement bureaucracy is not needed nor feasible, PSC said in letter to Labor secretary Thomas Perez and White House Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz.

“Congress has already provided strong enforcement mechanisms that both protect taxpayer dollars from egregious labor law violators while allowing for due process in applying those mechanisms to violations,” said PSC president and CEO Stan Soloway. Soloway recently wrote about the issue in his regular Washington Technology column.

“The order would complicate and confuse that process by imposing new data collection, reviews, inter-agency consultations and procedures on top of the balanced and battle-tested enforcement regimens already in place,” he said.

PSC and other trade associations believe that the order will increase the cost of compliance to both government and industry by forcing industry to collect data and make reports that the government already compiles on its own.

This would manifest in delayed contract awards, limited competition for work and increased contract protests, PSC said.