Please choose your delivery country and your customer group
The Department of Defense (DOD) is the largest contracting agency in the federal government, obligating more than $380 billion on contracts for goods and services in fiscal year 2019. DODs contract spending accounted for about 65 percent of the governments total contract spending. Some DOD contracts involve work that can be dangerous, such as manufacturing and construction. The Department of Labors (Labor) Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the federal agency responsible for overseeing safety and health-related working conditions, and its Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is responsible for enforcing requirements related to minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labor standards. We previously reported that DOD has awarded contracts to some companies that Labor found to have violated federal labor laws, including workplace safety, health, and wage standards. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 included a provision for us to report on the number of DOD contractors that Labor found to have willful or repeated violations of certain labor laws, specifically the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act) or the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). This report examines, for fiscal years 2015 through 2019, (1) the number of DOD contractors cited for willful or repeated safety, health, or fair labor standards violations under the OSH Act or the FLSA, and (2) the nature of the violations. We analyzed Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG) data to identify companies that had contracts with DOD in fiscal years 2015 through 2019 and compared them to Labor data on companies that were cited for willful or repeated safety, health, or fair labor standards violations.