I hope you are correct. I have never heard of the govt capping wages for private contractor’s employees
though they do set other parameters for govt contracts sometimes...especially as you noted ..minority participation
I suspect that Chu is trying to offset potential morale problems with his government employees by trying to extend the wage ‘freeze’ to contractor personnel. Kind of curious, Obama’s executive order specifically exempted performance based increases which Chu’s memo seems to freeze. Also, Obama’s executive order and memorandum only apply to government employees.
I found this in another thread:
“Washington DC - Following President Obama’s recent proposal for a two-year pay freeze for all civilian federal workers, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced a decision to stop salary and bonus pool increases for site and facility management contractor employees, who manage day-to-day operations at certain Department of Energy sites and facilities, including national laboratories.”
“As our nation continues to recover from these challenging economic times, households and small businesses across the country are making sacrifices,” said Chu. “In this spirit, we are asking our contractor employees, who are doing important research, operations, and environmental cleanup work, to join the federal workforce in playing a part.”