This is a recent case involving a fast food restaurant and truly tiny differences between the prevailing wage determination’s result and the subsequent notices. In this case, the amount was twenty cents a year and that tiny discrepancy was really the result of rounding (ie. converting a salary stated as annualized in the prevailing wage determination to hourly).
Ultimately, some measure of common sense prevailed even though there was this tiny discrepancy. The conclusion was that there’s no conceivable way a misstatement of twenty cents over the course of a year could have had a “chilling” impact on U.S. workers.
This seems like the right result. There were some additional factors and solid arguments made by the employer’s lawyer that contributed to the Board’s decision here, but you can also see this case going the other direction potentially.
Two notes here (mainly for lawyers more than employers). First, obviously this highlights just how exacting this whole process is here. I mean, just think about how many hours of government time was spent here over a misstatement of $0.20. It’s just incredibly inefficient if you think about it, but anyway, that’s how strictly the rules are enforced. Second and perhaps not as obvious… if your employer phrases their pay as hourly, which tons of employers with schedules that change week-to-week do, ALWAYS make sure to add a note in the prevailing wage request that you wish for the Determination to be issued by stating an hourly wage. On Form 9141, you do this at Section E, subsection b, space 5 which is “Special Requirements - List specific skills, licenses/certificates/certifications, and requirements of the job opportunity.” Assuming there aren’t licenses required, you would enter something like: “None. Request HOURLY wage determination if possible, please.” In those cases, you should get the wage determination issued as hourly and that will allow you to avoid any rounding pitfalls like we saw here in this case.
Originally from June 2019, published at: https://www.permlabor.com/blog/almost-every-penny-counts