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DEPARTMENT OF LABOR ISSUES NEW GUIDANCE ON PREVAILING WAGE DETERMINATIONS
The Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration has issued a letter to state employment security agencies (SESAs) providing guidance on the use of new wage data from the Occupational Employment Statistics Survey (OES), as well as other issues of interest in the alien labor certification programs.  The OES information is often used to determine the prevailing wage in labor certifications and labor condition applications. 
There are two sets of data in the OES.  One, the ALC database, is to be used in most occupations.  The other, the EDC database, is to be used in cases where the petitioning entity is an institution of higher education or a related non-profit entity, a non-profit research organization, or a governmental research organization.  
When the ALC database is applicable, it should be used to provide the prevailing wage unless there is a wage mandated by a federal contract, a wage obtained under a collective bargaining agreement, or an acceptable wage survey provided by the employer.  When the EDC database is used, it will determine the prevailing wage unless there is a union agreement with regard to wages, or an acceptable private wage survey.  
The rest of the guidance memo deals with the use of private wage surveys.  The memo makes no changes in current requirements for using such surveys. 
The text of the memo is available in the Visalaw Documents Collection at http://www.visalaw.com/docs/.