News Release

E-Gov Joint Venture Launches WDOL.gov
Website Provides Easy Access to Wage Determinations

WASHINGTON - The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division announced the official launch of the new Wage Determination Online (WDOL) program. The WDOL program at www.wdol.gov will provide the federal contracting community and the general public ready access to the wage determinations required on most federal or federally funded construction contracts and on most federal service contracts. WDOL is part of the Integrated Acquisition Environment, one of the E-Government Initiatives that makes up President George W. Bush's Management Agenda.

WDOL.gov is the product of an Inter-Agency Task Force that includes the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, the Office of Management and Budget, the General Services Administration, the Department of the Defense, and the Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service. In May 2002, the Task Force began an effort to develop a single website for access to federal contract labor standards information and wage determinations issued under the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act (SCA) and Davis-Bacon Act (DBA). WDOL.gov offers users a number of unique features in a web-based environment. This site includes:

• Guidance to contracting officers on selecting the appropriate wage determination for each contract action;
• Access to the most current SCA and DBA wage determinations, as well as an alert service for notification of future revisions to particular wage determinations; and,
• Access to databases containing archived wage determinations under both SCA and DBA.
  

"As an e-government initiative, WDOL.gov combines a number of individual agency-dedicated websites into one site, making information available quickly and easily. There is a streamlined appearance, user-friendly help guide, and a series of questions to direct the user to the correct wage determination - all with a single click," said Tammy D. McCutchen, administrator of the Wage and Hour Division. "We also want to thank and congratulate our partners in the task force. Their expertise and dedication made WDOL a reality."

WDOL is a key step towards accomplishing President Bush's E-Government goals of making it easier for citizens to obtain services from and to interact with the federal government, improving government efficiency and effectiveness, and improving government's responsiveness to citizens. Access is open to the entire federal contracting community (agencies, contractors, labor organizations), and to the general public.

Contracting agency participants in the beta test of the new program commented that they now have a tool that contracting officers will not hesitate to go back and use again and again. The resources available in the WDOL Library bring together websites that many of the contracting officers may not have known existed. Similar responses came from the contractors community and labor organizations.

The DBA requires that contractors on most federal and federally-funded construction projects pay their construction workers no less than the locally prevailing wage rate. The SCA requires contractors performing services on most federal contracts to pay service employees no less than the wage rates and fringe benefits found prevailing in the locality. These wage determinations are incorporated by the contracting agencies into covered contracts.

For more information about the DBA and the SCA, call the Department of Labor's toll-free help line at 1-866-4USWAGE (1-866-487-9243) or visit the Internet at www.wagehour.dol.gov.

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