12/20/2009

OFLC Centralizes/Nationalizes Prevailing Wage Determination for All Permanent and Temporary Labor Certifications Effective 01/01/2010.

OFLC releases a notice in the federal register that the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) National Prevailing Wage and Helpdesk Center (NPWHC) in Washington, DC, will receive and process Prevailing Wage Determination (PWD) requests for use in the H-1B, H-1B1 (Chile/Singapore), H-1C, H-2B, E-3 (Australia), and permanent labor certification programs. 

The change involves more than jurisdictional change. It also involves change in filing procedure:

1) Requestors must submit PWD requests, Form ETA 9141, (see also filing instructions), to the NPWHC by U.S. Mail or comparable physical delivery service at the following address: 

U.S. Department of Labor-ETA, 

National Prevailing Wage and Helpdesk Center, 

Attn: PWD Request; 1341 G Street, NW., Suite 201, 

Washington, DC 20005-3142. 

2) The Department is in the process of developing an electronic means for the submission of PWD requests and will publish a notice in the Federal Register informing the public when such a process becomes available. Until the electronic filing is made available, the employers are likely to experience a tremendous delays in the prevailing wage determination.