The Department of Labor (DOL) Dec. 19 published a final rule revising regulations pertaining to the Davis-Bacon Act and the Copeland Anti-Kickback Act to better protect the privacy of workers on federal construction contracts. The proposed rule, which goes into effect Jan. 18, eliminates the requirement that certain personal information about workers be transmitted weekly to DOL on certified payrolls.
Under the new rule, workers’ Social Security numbers and home addresses no longer have to be transmitted to DOL in weekly emails containing wage information, although the agency will require individual employee identification numbers which will likely be the last four digits of a worker’s social security number.
ABC strongly supported DOL’s efforts to improve worker privacy in comments and pointed out that the rule “creates a uniform system that provides greater protection against inadvertent disclosure of private employee information. There is no reason to continue requiring contractors to expose their employees’ personal information outside the workplace and outside the context of an actual investigation.”
Construction contractors and subcontractors will still be required to maintain workers’ addresses and Social Security numbers and government agencies responsible for ensuring compliance with contract provisions will continue to be able to access that information if necessary for purposes of an audit or investigation.
To read about DOL’s worker privacy rule, click
here.
For additional information, contact Bob Hirsch at ABC,
hirsch@abc.org.