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High Road Contracting
Special interest groups and the White House Middle Class Task Force are advocating for federal regulations that would give preferences to employers whose pay and benefit packages meet new “high road” standards. This proposal is similar to the blacklisting regulations that were pushed by the Clinton Administration. Politicians and interest groups could use the “high road” standards to blacklist employers who do not run every facet of their business the way the government wants.
The proposal would benefit contractors who provide hourly workers with a “living wage,” health insurance, an employer-funded retirement plan, and paid sick days. Contracting officers would weigh a company’s labor policies as criteria for awarding the contract, along with the standard metrics: price, past performance, and the ability to meet the contract’s requirements.
Numerous federal laws and regulations, including the Davis-Bacon Act, the Service Contract Act, and the Federal Acquisition Regulation Council (FAR), already set standards and guidelines for federal contractors.
Status: The Obama Administration has not introduced an executive order or formally proposed a regulation related to the “high road” proposal. However, the ranking members of the House and Senate Government Oversight Committees, Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA) and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), respectively, have separately written the Administration to discourage them from moving forward with a “high road” proposal.
IEC’s Position: IEC opposes these needless regulations, whose only purpose would be to steer federal contracting dollars to a small percentage of the employer community that happens to be well-connected politically, at the expense of good, law-abiding employers.