Title 29

SECTION 778.7

778.7 Effect of Service Contract Act of 1965.

§ 778.7 Effect of Service Contract Act of 1965.

The McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act of 1965, which provides for the predetermination and the specification in service contracts entered into by the Federal Government or the District of Columbia, of the minimum wages and fringe benefits to be received by employees of contractors and subcontractors employed in work on such contracts, contains the following provision:

Sec. 6. In determining any overtime pay to which such service employees are entitled under any Federal law, the regular or basic hourly rate of pay of such an employee shall not include any fringe benefit payments computed hereunder which are excluded from the regular rate under the Fair Labor Standards Act by provisions of section 7(e)* thereof. (*Subsection designation changed in text from section 7(d) to 7(e) to conform with the relettering enacted by the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1966.)

Where the fringe benefits specified in such a service contract are furnished to an employee, the above provision permits exclusion of such fringe benefits from the employee's regular rate of pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act pursuant to the rules and principles set forth in subpart C of this part 778. However, the McNamara-O'Hara Act permits an employer to discharge his obligation to provide the specified fringe benefits by furnishing any equivalent combinations of bona fide fringe benefits or by making equivalent or differential payments in cash. Permissible methods of doing this are set forth in part 4 of this title, subpart B. If the employer furnishes equivalent benefits or makes cash payments, or both, to an employee as therein authorized, the amounts thereof, to the extent that they operate to discharge the employer's obligation under the McNamara-O'Hara Act to furnish such specified fringe benefits, may be excluded pursuant to such Act from the employee's regular or basic rate of pay in computing any overtime pay due the employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act, pursuant to the rule provided in § 4.55 of this title. This means that such equivalent fringe benefits or cash payments which are authorized under the McNamara-O'Hara Act to be provided in lieu of the fringe benefits specified in determinations issued under such Act are excludable from the regular rate in applying the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act if the fringe benefits specified under the McNamara-O'Hara Act would be so excludable if actually furnished. This is true regardless of whether the equivalent benefits or payments themselves meet the requirements of section 7(e) of the Fair Labor Standards Act and subpart C of this part 778.

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