Opinion ID: 730861
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Federal-Aid Highways Act

Text: 26 The Department of Labor also contends that even if this Court decides that the phrase site of the work in the Davis-Bacon Act is unambiguous, the Secretary is not precluded from applying the broader definition of that phrase (encompassed in 29 C.F.R. § 5.2(l)) to the contract in question because it is covered by the Federal-Aid Highways Act (a Davis-Bacon Related Act). The Department asserts that unlike the Davis-Bacon Act, the Federal-Aid Highways Act does not contain language limiting its scope to employees working directly upon the site of work. The magistrate judge found that this argument failed and that Cavett's contract was indeed governed by the site of the work requirement of the Davis-Bacon Act. 892 F.Supp. at 979. 27 The Federal-Aid Highway Act states as follows: 28 (a) The Secretary shall take such action as may be necessary to insure that all laborers and mechanics employed by contractors or subcontractors on the construction work performed on highway projects on the Federal-aid highways ... shall be paid wages at rates not less than those prevailing on the same type of work on similar construction in the immediate locality as determined by the Secretary of Labor in accordance with the Act of March 3, 1931, known as the Davis-Bacon Act (40 U.S.C. 276a). 29 23 U.S.C. § 113(a) (emphasis added). The Act specifically notes that the prevailing wage determination shall be in accordance with the Davis-Bacon Act. In our view, this means that the Federal-Aid Highways Act incorporates from the Davis-Bacon Act not only its method of determining prevailing wage rates but also its method of determining prevailing wage coverage. In other words, if 29 C.F.R. § 5.2(l) is inconsistent with the Davis-Bacon Act it must also be inconsistent with the Federal-Aid Highways Act. 30 This finding is consistent with a decision of the District of Columbia Circuit Court and with the Department of Labor's own regulations. In the District of Columbia's Midway decision, the prime contractor was subject to both the Davis-Bacon Act and the Federal-Aid Highway Act, however, that court only analyzed the case within the Davis-Bacon Act framework. See Midway, 932 F.2d at 987 n. 2. If the District of Columbia Circuit Court had thought that the Department of Labor's regulation (29 C.F.R. § 5.2(j)) could have been interpreted differently under the Federal-Aid Highways Act, it would have distinguished between the two statutes in its ruling. 2 In addition, if the Department of Labor truly believed that the Federal-Aid Highways Act dictated a more expansive prevailing wage coverage than the Davis-Bacon Act, it would not have enacted only one set of implementing regulations (at 29 C.F.R. Part 5) for both statutes. 31 Moreover, to the extent that there is legislative history on the Federal-Aid Highways Act, that history suggests a concern for ensuring that the wages of federally aided highway construction workers were given the same wage protection as those laborers covered by the Davis-Bacon Act. 3 If this Court were to interpret the Federal-Aid Highways Act as applying to off-site workers, we would be giving laborers performing work on federally funded highway construction projects more protection than laborers performing work on federally funded non-highway construction projects--a result clearly not contemplated in the legislative history of the Federal-Aid Highways Act. As a result, we find that the magistrate judge correctly interpreted Cavett's contract under the statutory framework of the Davis-Bacon Act rather than the Federal-Aid Highways Act.