Under FAR Clause 52.222-11 - Subcontracts (Labor Standards) , does the actual reporting requirements stop at the Prime, or at the contracting officer?
Fixed Price Construction IDIQ. All contractors/subcontractors are SB.
As an example:
Prime uses one subcontractor. The subcontractor (acts like a prime and) subcontracts all of the actual work. The Prime does not interpret 52.222-11 to mean that all of the document generation requirements under this clause get sent to the CO; rather, submittals like Payroll, Form 1413, Apprentice Certifications and such stop at the Prime. Prime believes they only need to submit said documents on the first tier subcontractor.
Initially I read the clause and disagreed; it seemed an easy way around Federal labor laws if this were the case. After reading through para (d)(1) and (d)(2) of the clause a few more times, what seemed clear at first no longer seems so. Para (d)(2) states that the Contractor shall deliver an updated 1413 for additional subcontracts, which seems to imply that additional lower tier subcontractors do not generate a new 1413 -they just get added onto the current one.
After thinking about this some more, I think it's a poorly worded and confusing clause. I think the intent may be that a subcontractor should read (d)(1) as if he were the Contractor being referred to in the clause, and therefore the requirements apply to himself/herself as well. I want to say that in (d)(2), any subsequently awarded lower tier subcontracts get updated on the 1413 for that subcontractor. In turn, the lower tier subcontractors have to repeat this process until no more subcontracts occur.
Can anyone weigh in?