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Subject Area Definitions

Administrative Procedure Act and Related Texts
The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) prescribes uniform standards for formal agency hearings. A search on this subject includes the text of the APA and other materials relating generally to procedure in agency adjudications.

Black Lung Benefits
The federal black lung benefits program is for coal miners who are totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis and surviving dependents of miners whose death was due to pneumoconiosis.

Contract Disputes Arising Pursuant to Federal Procurement (Board of Contract Appeals)
The Contract Disputes Act provides for the resolution of disputes arising under Federal procurement contracts and for the creation and functioning of Federal agency Boards of Contract Appeals. At the Department of Labor, the Board of Contract Appeals is housed within the Office of Administrative Law Judges.

Davis Bacon Act, Service Contract Act and Related Acts
The Davis Bacon Act is designed to give local laborers and contractors a fair opportunity to participate in federal building programs, to protect the employees of government contractors from substandard wages, and to promote the hiring of local labor rather than cheap labor from distant sources. The Service Contract Act is designed to provide minimum hourly wage and fringe benefit rate protection to employees working under service procurement contracts with the U.S. government within the U.S.

Federal Employees' Workers Compensation (ECAB)
The Federal Employees' Compensation Act governs the claims of federal employees injured in the course of their employment. The Employees' Compensation Appeals Board (ECAB) hears and decides cases on appeal from decisions of the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP).

Immigration
The Secretary of Labor is responsible under the Immigration and Nationality Act for administering labor certification programs designed to ensure that the admission of foreign workers into the United States on a permanent or temporary basis will not adversely affect the job opportunities, wages, and working conditions of U.S. workers.
Adjudications of permanent labor certification appeals are conducted by the Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals, which is housed within the Office of Administrative Law Judges.
Temporary labor certification disputes are heard by individual administrative law judges. For some immigration-related cases, the ALJ's decision is the final decision, while others may be appealed to the Administrative Review Board.

Longshore
The Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act provides medical benefits, compensation for lost wages and rehabilitation services to longshoremen, harbor workers and other maritime workers who are injured during the course of employment or suffer from diseases caused or worsened by conditions of employment. Several other statutes extend the provisions of the Act to cover other classes of private-industry workers. These include workers engaged in the extraction of natural resources of the outer continental shelf, employees on American defense bases, and those working under contracts with the U.S. government for defense or public-works projects, outside of the Continental United States.

OFCCP
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs is charged with investigating and prosecuting alleged violations of Executive Order 11246, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Rehabilitation Act), and Section 402 of the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 (Veterans' Act or VEVRAA). The purpose of E.O. 11246 is to promote and ensure equal employment opportunity for all persons without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It applies to those persons who are employed or seeking employment with government contractors or with contractors performing under federally assisted construction contracts. The Veterans' Act requires that government contractors take affirmative action to employ and advance qualified disabled veterans and veterans of the Vietnam Era. Finally, the Rehabilitation Act requires that government contractors take affirmative action to employ and promote qualified handicapped individuals.
Complaints may be filed by OFCCP with the Office of Administrative Law Judges for a hearing. ALJ decisions are automatically reviewed by the Administrative Review Board.

Whistleblower
The Department of Labor is responsible for adjudicating "whistleblower" or "employee protection" provisions of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7622; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. § 9610; Energy Reorganization Act, 42 U.S.C. § 5851; Federal Water Pollution Control Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1367; Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002, 49 U.S.C. § 60129; Safe Drinking Water Act, 42 U.S.C. § 300j-9; Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, 18 U.S.C. & 1514A; Solid Waste Disposal Act, 42 U.S.C. § 6971; Surface Transportation Assistance Act, 49 U.S.C. § 3110; Toxic Substances Control Act, 15 U.S.C. § 2622; Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century (AIR 21), 49 U.S.C. § 42121. Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, 15 U.S.C. §2087.

Workforce Investment Act, JTPA and CETA
The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) provides the framework for a national workforce preparation and employment system designed to meet both the needs of the nation’s businesses and the needs of job seekers and those who want to further their careers. The WIA replaced the JTPA, which in turn had replaced the CETA. A variety of disputes arising under the WIA program can result in administrative law judge hearings. The Administrative Review Board hears appeals of ALJ decisions.

Other ETA-related programs
The Employment and Training Administration administers a wide variety of federal government job training and worker dislocation programs, federal grants to states for public employment service programs, and unemployment insurance benefits programs. Some of these programs can involve disputes that result in a hearing before a DOL ALJ. ETA-related immigration and WIA cases are set out as distinct subjects above. The various other ETA-programs may be searched in this collection include:

certain disputes arising out of state unemployment compensation programs (UIA)
certain disputes arising out of state apprenticeship programs (CCP)
Job Service Complaint System disputes (often immigration-related) (JSA)
Senior Community Service Employment program disputes (OAA)
Welfare-to-Work audits and investigations (WTW)
and any other miscellaneous ETA originated cases.

Other ESA-related programs
The Employment Standards Administration (ESA) has several divisions that administer programs that can result in hearings. OWCP's black lung and longshore programs are set out as separate collections above.
ESA's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is responsible for administering and enforcing a wide variety of labor laws. The Wage and Hour Division related cases that may be searched in this collection include:

the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (CLA)
other Fair Labor Standards Act cases (FLS)
the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA)
the Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPP)
and other miscellaneous case types.

Immigration-related cases, and DBA and SCA cases are covered in separate collections above.

ESA's Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) administers certain "Standards of Conduct" cases relating to federal unions that may be referred to an ALJ for a hearing. These cases are included in this collection.

Other DOL agency programs
This search collection includes case types that are not agency specific or cases types about which only a small number of hearings are typically conducted. These include:

The Debt Collection Act (DCA). These cases can arise from any agency within DOL.
Petitions for modifications of mine safety standards (MSA). These cases arise out of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
Certain ERISA civil money penalty actions relating to failure to file annual reports or prohibited transactions (RIS). These cases arise out of the Employee Benefits Security Administration (formerly PWBA).
Miscellaneous case types (MIS) (e.g., attorney admission and discipline; orders disposing of matters because DOL does not have jurisdiction over the filing, etc.)