Five Elements of a Successful DOL Complaint

Your support is critical to helping the Spotlighting Cheating Contractors initiative restore fairness in government bidding. Only with your participation can we instill fear in non-compliant contractors and ensure heightened compliance on prevailing wage projects.

To help you with the U. S. Department of Labor complaint process, we’re sharing five tips aimed at making it more successful:

1. Gather supporting evidence that substantiates the basis of the third party complaint.
2. Submit your third party complaint in a timely fashion. This is to allow the DOL to investigate the public works project while construction is ongoing and employees are available to interview.
3. Where available, produce “warm bodies” or sworn affidavits/declarations from employees performing work on the public works project.
4. Use detailed project information, including results of independent audits and investigations. This will help to spotlight the compliance issues on-site and to identify the non-compliant acts and actors.
5. Develop relationships and maintain communication with the appropriate DOL investigating office to ensure an efficient and timely investigation to promote the enforcement of policies such as restitution, back wages, correcting payrolls, recommendations for debarment when applicable, etc.