Department of Labor Announces Proposal for Online Process
To Provide Wage Determinations

New Website Detailed in Proposed Rulemaking Published Today

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published proposed changes to two regulations today in the Federal Register that would implement the Wage Determinations OnLine (WDOL) website at www.wdol.gov. The proposed rule updates the department's procedures that federal agencies follow to request and obtain wage determinations for inclusion in their service and construction contracts. The development of WDOL allows contracting agencies to fully realize the process improvements and savings provided by the online services.

This proposal updates the regulatory framework for obtaining wage determinations by replacing the current manual and paper-intensive processes with an Internet-based system, Wage Determinations On-Line (WDOL), said Alfred B. Robinson, Acting Administrator of the department's Wage and Hour Division. This system is part of the Integrated Acquisition Environment, one of the E-Government Initiatives in President George W. Bush's Management Agenda.

This proposed rule culminates the efforts of an Inter-Agency Task Force that includes the department's Wage and Hour Division, the Office of Management and Budget, the General Services Administration, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service, to develop a single website for access to federal contract labor standards information and wage determinations issued under the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act (SCA) and Davis-Bacon Act (DBA) by the department's Wage and Hour Division. The WDOL includes guidance for contracting agencies and contractors on how to select the appropriate wage determination for federal contracts and provides access to the most current wage determinations and to databases that contain archived wage determinations under both the Service Contract Act (SCA) and the Davis Bacon Act (DBA). A feature on the site alerts users to future revisions to particular wage determinations.

The WDOL does not affect how the Wage and Hour Division determines prevailing wages under either the SCA or the DBA.

The proposed changes are now open for a 30-day public comment period. The full text of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking can be found online at www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/ and the department's website at www.dol.gov . For more information about the DBA and SCA, call the Department of Labor's toll-free help line at 1-866-4USWAGE (1-866-487-9243) or visit the Internet at www.wagehour.dol.gov.

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Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.