Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order for Government Contractors Revoked

On March 27, 2017, President Donald Trump officially completed the revocation of the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order.  Government contractors are no longer required to report violations of certain federal employment laws when bidding on contracts worth $500,000 or more and are no longer required to comply with the provision’s paycheck transparency rules.

Coverage: Government contractors with contracts of $500,000 or more.

Effective:  Currently in effect.

Action Required:  Please contact your Human Resources Business Partner if you have any questions.

The Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order (EO), which was also referred to as the “Blacklisting” Executive Order, required government contractors to report on violations of certain federal employment laws when bidding on most government contracts worth $500,000 or more. It also created wage statement requirements or “paycheck transparency” rules. 

The wage statement provisions would have required covered government contractors to include certain information on government contractors’ employees’ wage statements, including a breakdown of hours worked on a workweek basis.  It also would have required that certain information provided to employees be translated into languages other than English in certain cases. The final rule implementing these provisions was discussed here in a previous edition of the Insights & Solutions newsletter.

As mentioned above, the EO was originally set to take effect in October 2016, but implementation of most of the measure was halted when a federal judge issued an injunction in October 2016.  The paycheck transparency portion of the EO, however, was not subject to the injunction and it was scheduled to take effect earlier this year. 

On March 6, 2017, Congress passed H.J.Res.37 , which, pursuant to the Congressional Review Act, invalidated the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces EO.  President Trump signed the legislation on March 27, 2017, finalizing the revocation of the EO.  Accordingly, employers are no longer required to comply with any of its provisions, including the paycheck fairness portion of the EO.