A federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked some provisions of a rule the U.S. Department of Labor finalized last year expanding the Davis-Bacon Act, signaling that the Associated General Contractors of America is likely to succeed in his lawsuit challenging parts of the rule.
AGC, along with its Texas chapter plus the Lubbock and Amarillo Chamber of Commerce, Texas-based contractor J. Lee Milligan Inc., filed the lawsuit last November targeting parts of the rule that expands the prevailing wage requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act on federally funded projects. to truck drivers and material supplier employees in some cases. The rule went into effect on October 23 with support from unions and criticism from some contractor groups.
U.S. District Court Judge Sam Cummings in Lubbock issued the injunction on June 24, blocking Labor Department officials from enforcing three provisions of the rule challenged by the plaintiffs pending end the case
Jeffrey Shoaf, CEO of AGC, said in a statement that the association’s concern is that the Labor Department is “extending the scope of the rule far beyond what Congress intended.”
“This ban restores the original intent of the Davis-Bacon Act,” Shoaf said.
In the motion, Cummings wrote that the plaintiffs “are substantially likely to succeed in their claims” that the Labor Department lacks legal authority to enforce the challenged provisions. He added that federal agencies “violate the Constitution when they try to unilaterally change the laws of Congress to fit their political preferences.”
The Labor Department has argued that the rule does not expand Davis-Bacon coverage, but simply codifies the existing policy while making some minor adjustments. Officials have said the rule improves their ability to more effectively and efficiently enforce the Davis-Bacon Act’s labor standards. Department representatives did not immediately respond to inquiries about the demand.
Cummings found that the Labor Department faces no risk of economic loss from the injunction, while the plaintiffs have shown that there is a substantial threat that the rule will “cause irreparable harm” to contractors because of the uncertainty it creates in the bidding process. , as well as the added administrative costs, the difficulty of ensuring compliance, and the risk of exclusion from federal procurement if a company fails to follow the requirements.
The mandate does not block other sections of the rule, including returning to an earlier definition of “prevailing wage” that was changed during the Reagan administration, updating prevailing wage rates, and providing more authority for state or local wage determinations in some cases
However, builders and associated contractors are also separately suing the Department of Labor to challenge the rule, saying it “unlawfully expands the coverage of prevailing wage requirements to new projects and industries and increases its regulatory burden on small construction that work on federally funded contracts.” This case in the United States District Court for Eastern Texas is ongoing.
