The Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced this week that its Final Rule implementing Executive Order 13495, Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers Under Service Contracts (“Executive Order 13495” or the “Executive Order”) will apply to federal service contracts and solicitations made on or after January 18, 2013.
Executive Order 13495 applies to federal contracts covered by the Service Contract Act. Under the Executive Order, a successor contractor and its subcontractors must, with some exceptions, offer employees employed under the predecessor contract a right of first refusal for positions with the successor for which they are qualified. DOL’s Final Rule implementing Executive Order 13495 can be found at http://federalregister.gov/a/2011-21261.
Although DOL issued its final regulations over a year ago, in August 2011, those regulations could not take effect until the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (“FARC”) amended the Federal Acquisition Regulation (“FAR”) to include the new contract clause required by theExecutive Order. The final regulations amending the FAR were published today and appear in the December 21, 2012 edition of the Federal Register (available online at https://federalregister.gov/a/2012-30595).
