A spate of executive orders issued by President Barack Obama in 2014 has made it an eventful year for federal contractors. From his minimum-wage hike in January to his LGBT employment protection order in July, Obama has been putting his tactic of governing by “pen and phone” to use.

The latest use of this approach is the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order,” signed by the president on Thursday. The order requires most federal contractors to disclose new facts about labor law violations, and will prevent mandatory arbitration for many employees in certain types of legal disputes, thus creating more potential work for legal departments and more potential litigation.

The executive order, which will govern new federal procurement contracts valued at more than $500,000 beginning in 2016, requires that companies in the running for these contracts—as well as many subcontractors—hand over the last three years’ worth of information on any labor law violations. Contractors will have to disclose whether they’ve incurred a violation (defined as an administrative merits determination, arbitral award or decision, or civil judgment) under any of 14 listed statutes or corresponding state laws. The labor statutes range from those dealing with wage-and-hour issues to workplace civil rights issues to collective bargaining and health and safety. Those contractors with enough violations might lose out on opportunities to work for the federal government.

Read more: www.corpcounsel.com/id=1202665572168/Executive-Order-Requires-New-Labor-Disclosures#ixzz39XUCPKjT

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