BUILDING & CONST. TRADES DEPT., AFL-CIO v. Donovan

• Decision Date: 23 December 1982
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 82-1631.
• Citation: 553 F. Supp. 352
• Parties: BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION TRADES DEPARTMENT, AFL-CIO, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Raymond J. DONOVAN, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

553 F. Supp. 352

BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION TRADES DEPARTMENT, AFL-CIO, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Raymond J. DONOVAN, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 82-1631.

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

December 23, 1982.

Laurence Gold, AFL-CIO, Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs.

Surrell Brady, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civ. Div., Washington, D.C., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM

HAROLD H. GREENE, District Judge.

On July 22, 1982, 543 F.Supp. 1282, the Court issued a preliminary injunction restraining the enforcement of certain regulations which the Secretary of Labor had issued ostensibly in implementation of the Davis-Bacon Act, 40 U.S.C. § 276a et seq., and the Copeland Anti-Kickback Act, 40 U.S.C. § 276c. The same matter is now before the Court on the parties'¹ cross motions for summary judgment.

The order granting the preliminary injunction was accompanied by a Memorandum which discusses the various regulations and the issues of this lawsuit at some length and, except for certain specific matters, no useful purpose would be served by plowing over the same ground once again in similar or greater detail.

Briefly, the July 22 Memorandum expressed the Court's view that the statutory language and the legislative history regarding the basis for the five types of regulations at issue was somewhat ambiguous, with language and history supporting the Secretary's interpretation more strongly with respect to some of the regulations and less strongly with respect to others. The Court ultimately resolved the doubts for preliminary injunction purposes in favor of the plaintiffs because each of the regulations issued by the present Secretary of Labor is wholly inconsistent with administrative interpretation contemporaneous with the enactment of the statutes about 1935 and consistent administrative practice since then. See generally Norwegian Nitrogen Co. v. United States, 288 U.S. 294, 53 S.Ct. 350, 77 L.Ed. 796 (1933). The Court will now simply add the following to what was said on July 22, 1982.

First. Nothing substantially new has been adduced by the parties or the amicus or found by the Court with respect to three of the challenged regulations.

a. The Act directs the Secretary, in his ascertainment of the prevailing wage, to determine wages for "projects of a character similar to contract work." 40 U.S.C. § 276a. As the Court previously pointed out, administrative practice from the early 1930s on has been to consider both private and public projects in ascertaining the appropriate standard for ascertaining the prevailing wage. The present Secretary's attempt to alter this consistent practice² is based essentially on nothing more than his policy difference with the preceding fifteen Secretaries of Labor. That is not enough. See Memorandum of July 22 at pp. 12-14.

b. The next point of dispute centers around the question whether, in setting prevailing wage rates for rural areas, the Secretary may consider the wages being paid in nearby metropolitan areas. As the Court previously indicated, the legislative history of this provision is mixed, but here, too, the ambiguities are fully resolved by contemporaneous and consistent administrative practice against the construction adopted by the present Secretary.

c. The Copeland Act requires the Secretary to issue regulations for federal contractors which, inter alia, require such contractors to "furnish weekly a statement with respect to the wages paid each employee during the preceding week." Secretaries of Labor have always construed this provision to mean that copies of the actual weekly payroll must be submitted. The regulations issued by the present Secretary, however, would require only a statement from the contractor that he had complied with the Act. The new regulation suffers not only from the same infirmity as the others referred to above — that it is contrary to consistent, long-standing administrative practice — but it is also subject to the additional criticism that it would render the Act largely unenforceable. See pp. 10-11 of the Memorandum of July 22, 1982.

Second. The Davis-Bacon Act provides that every federal construction contract shall contain a provision to the effect that the minimum wages being paid to various classes of laborers and mechanics shall be those determined by the Secretary "to be prevailing" for corresponding classes of laborers and mechanics. The existing regulations define "prevailing wage" as the wages being paid to at least thirty percent of those so employed. The new regulations issued by the present Secretary and temporarily enjoined by the Court would change this standard to provide in essence that a wage shall be deemed prevailing only if it is paid to a majority (more than fifty percent) of a particular class.

The Act itself does not provide a definition of "prevailing wage," and it is abundantly clear that the definitional task was entirely delegated to the Secretary. There is nothing intrinsically appropriate or inappropriate to the thirty percent rule or to any other figure as representing the "prevailing wage." Moreover, the legislative history of the statute and its purposes do not provide support for any particular figure. The statute quite simply relies on the Secretary to give content from time to time to the term "prevailing wage" in the exercise of his discretion and his expertise. There is no indication that Congress intended the first Secretary of Labor following enactment of the law to define the definition of prevailing wage for all time. To the contrary, contemporaneous and subsequent legislative materials indicate that Congress was fully aware that the definition might or would be adjusted depending on existing conditions. See 74 Cong.Rec. 6516 (Feb. 28, 1931); 75 Cong.Rec. 12365 (June 8, 1932); Hearings before Senate Committee on Labor and...