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Contractor of federal government, not paying employees for holidays?? Is this legal?
I work for a company that is contracted by the federal government. We are currently in the process bidding for a new contract, which ended September 30, 2007. We are currently working under an extension of the previous contract until the new one is awarded. Our employer is stating that she won't get paid until she is awarded the contract and therefore we are not getting government holidays paid, though were are forced to take them off unpaid. She states that we will receive pay for these prorated in the future. There are other contract offices other than ours and from what we have heard, they have gotten all of their holiday pay. We also are only getting prorated pay for our personal and vacation time. I don't like this, I can understand the personal/vacation time a little bit better than the holiday because that is time we are requesting to take off. No one seems to want to ask anyone who is connected to our company for fear of losing their job. We have been in contact with the Office of Inspector General, but they do not answer their phone or reply to their email. If your solution is to find another job, trust me, I am trying. We have what we call the "golden handcuff" here, meaning that our wages are decent enough and finding a job that is competitive to them is extremely difficult. We are also being told that with this new contract, it is called performance based and that if our company doesn't meet the government's expectations 100% that we won't get paid….someone please tell me how this is legal? Does anyone know who I could contact about this?
Public Comments
- you should be receiving not only prevailing wage but ALL holidays not covered by your employment with your company...it is the LAW !...you should also get benefits equal in $ amount of the government employees...that includes health and retirement...this "extra" money should be included in your Hourly rate....contact your local Union office (even if you are not a union employee...they love to bring these things to your company's attention
- When I was a government contractor some years ago, if the government was closed on a holiday we did not get, we had to take our personal time or not get paid. I don't know if this has changed or not. You should try to contact the Dept of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). They monitor discrimination and affirmative action in Federal contracts, but I bet they could tell you whom you need to contact to find out if your contract is being administrated legally. The program office that runs your contract should also have a contracting officer who oversees your contract. If they are not too cozy with your bosses, they should really be the ones to give you information on your company's contract. In any case, the contract itself is public information, and its terms should be available to the general public. And unless things have changed, government contractors are not required to provide benefits commensurate with government employers. That's one of the ways contractors can do the work more cheaply than the government itself. It allows them to bid lower because their labor costs are lower due to lower benefits, among other things.
